Midnight Sun
by R.T.D.W
Summary: The fate of the world comes down to one week in which the two most powerful superpowers work together to defeat an old evil. But when the betrayal occurs and blow comes to blow even slightest action may change the course of history forever.
1. Day 1

Day One

It was a rather nice and beautiful summer day in the now rather large city of Fairbanks Alaska. The year was 2039, just shortly after the completion of the Russia-Alaska tunnel, and Fairbanks had grown to over two hundred and fifty three thousand people, and was now the largest city in Alaska.

School was nearly out for the year, only three days left, and on the playground of the Barnette Magnet School a large group of children were out playing.

Back and forth. Back and forth. The kids on the swings weren't necessarily young, being in junior high, but hey, who doesn't like swinging? Those that weren't swinging were standing next to the people that were, chatting idly. Off in one corner of the playground a group of kids were looking rather suspicious, if nothing else.

But then there were those few kids, two to be exact, who decided that running through heavy objects swinging backwards and forwards was quite fun. So there they were, one rather tall skinny boy and his friend.

The tall boy was, of course, tall, and gangly. He had a pair of glasses perched on his nose and brown, messy hair and brown, tired looking eyes.

The shorter boy had close cropped blond hair and blue eyes. He was roughly five-seven and of a medium build.

As they ran through the twenty something kids who were swinging so happily, they talked about whatever they felt like.

The tall boy, Derik, was talking about a game he had just beat for a third time, BioHazard or something like that.

"I honestly think it's the best game ever," the tall boy said running non-stop through four people, and halting to wait for his friend to catch up.

"Yea, and it probably is, though I wouldn't know, not owning it," replied the shorter boy, Ernie, Ern for short.

Stopping at the end of one set of swings to catch his breath, Bert continued on, "Well, you got your head cut off anyways, right? Too bad there aren't any zombies in it, though."

The two boys were now walking idly behind the swings, back towards the other end.

"Yea. Hey, speaking of zombies and other various undead, you know that kid Rudy?" That was Ern.

"Yea? The liar? What about him?" That was Derik.

"Well, he told his tallest tale ever during English. _He _claims that his dad works for the Umbrella Corp. and that he can bring the dead back to life."

"Seriously? Sweet. Too bad it ain't true though, I could easily utilize a zombie outbreak to score with some chicks!"

"Hell yea, man."

They finally reached the other end of the swings when Blake, a slightly overweight anime fan called out Ern's name, and Ern went to see what was up.

So Derik walked at a leisurely pace through the swings to where a few certain girls, all of whom were younger than him by a year, were swinging. They were a good crowd, screaming in surprise if he could sneak up on them and get right in front of their swings, jumping out of the way just in time.

It was definitely a great way to pass the time as the sun shined down on you from a clear blue sky.

Mean while, in another part of the city, a man in a white lab coat was running to his car to grab some papers he'd forgotten.

Grabbing them he slammed the door and began to run back towards the warehouse. His hair was a very dark brown and his frame very thin, and a pair of thick glasses kept slipping down his greasy face.

Arriving at his destination he slowed to a stop, pausing to smooth his hair and his lab coat, before entering the large and seemingly abandoned warehouse, one among many others in the downtown industrial district.

Ripping through the white corridor and down a flight of stairs on the left at the end, the man emerged out onto a large platform covered with various equipment, including two nondescript tankers and seven nondescript black SUVs.

Only one light was currently working, casting shadows across every surface, and illuminating the thick dust covering everything.

He paused at a large painting that seemed very out of place, pulling a small black key card from his back pocket and inserting it into a small slit in the wall, and he stood back as the painting opened outward, allowing him access to another dank white hallway.

Only every other light was working here, and every ten feet was a wooden door on either side of the hallway, each and every one of them looking as if they contained secrets left best untold to either man or god.

He stopped at one of these doors, opening it and then pulling it closed behind him.

The room in there was also dimly lit, cluttered counters lining the entire thing. Several chairs lay scattered about, and various scientific looking equipment lay about. Seven cages were mounted in the wall at the back of the room, and all but one was empty. The last contained a now very dead rabbit, half of its body missing, and blood smeared about the cage.

Dropping the papers on top of some other papers the man nearly ran to a closet and opened it, pulling out several vials of _stuff_, and bringing it all to a rather fancy looking contraption on the left of the room.

He then gingerly proceeded to lay out the vials in respective holders, and then glanced at some of the papers, then glided over to the closet and pulled out one single very sinister looking vial. Inserting it in the last slot, he closed down a small hatch over all the vials and pressed several buttons, starting the contraption.

Sitting down in a chair, his shoulders slumped, the man sighed. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was done. He had successfully recreated the G-Virus, and now he was free. Free to take his one son and his daughter away to somewhere safe, somewhere where he could sip coffee and watch things unfold.

The machine stopped, beeping once rather cheerfully, and then staying still.

And then there came a horrible screech, echoing through the halls and through the doors, eventually dieing quietly away.

"Fuck! Fucking shit," screamed the man, leaping towards a metal box on the other side of the room, and opening it hurriedly, withdrawing a 1911A1 Colt 45.

Inserting a clip with his hands shaking madly, the man swore a few more times, then pulling the slide back.

Taking a few deep breaths he calmed himself, then slid over to the door, pressing his ear against it, listening… listening… Aha! There it was, that distinct scratching sound, the sound that told you _something_ was out there, waiting, watching.

Pulling his head back the man put his right eye up to a peephole where he peered into the dimly lit hallway. Yep, there it was.

Pulling back, the man cleared his throat, and yelled, "Fuck you!"

There was silence for a moment as an unknown presence pondered the noise, then turned to begin viciously attacking the door.

Thud. Thud. Thudthdthud_thud. _Thud!

Putting his hand to the door, the man calmly gauged where the thing was, and then raised the 1911.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bambam!

There was a wet slap as something hit the floor, and silence as several pieces of brass clattered lightly on the floor.

Breathing heavily, the man jogged over to the machine and removed a large silver cylinder.

Stashing it in the metal box where he kept his pistol, he closed the box and sped out of the room, accidentally knocking over picture of a fourteen-year old boy with protruding buck teeth.

Dashing by a lifeless lump hidden in shadows, down the hallway and, by a busted door that only opened on shadows, the man burst through the painting door.

Dashing towards one of the SUVs and throwing the door open, he jumped in, sweat pouring out of every inch of his tense and nervous body. Slamming the door shut and throwing the box in the passenger seat, he fumbled with the keys that had already been in the ignition.

Humming obliviously to life, the vehicle stirred from its long and dusty sleep.

Revving the engine anxiously, the man shifted gears and sped forwards, nearly rolling the car in his haste. Speeding down the dark tunnel that was illuminated by headlights, and up a ramp out into the daylight and down the alley ways, away from the monstrosity that

lay beneath the forlorn and decrepit warehouse behind him.

Slinging his large, purple, and defiantly robust backpack over his shoulder, Derik closed his locker and started towards the stairs at the end of the hallway.

School had just gotten out and the hallway was quite empty, despite the fact that school had gotten out only several minutes ago.

Walking past several people who were still gathering their things or chatting idly, Derik checked his watch, more out of habit than anything else. Flattening his tousled brown hair with his hand, Derik started down the tiled stairs. It was three o' clock.

Coming to the bottom of the stairs Derik turned to his left, exited through two sets of back doors, and was greeted by the general hub-bub of people hanging around the school grounds after school, or people just waiting for a ride home.

Walking over to a group of people hanging around waiting for rides he began chatting idly.

There was only three people today, chiefly Nichole Shultz, Emily Koenig, and Ern.

"Hey guys, sup?" asked Derik, coming and standing with them.

"Not much," replied Ern.

"Same here," said Emily.

"So, Ern, what's the homework tonight?" asked Derik.

"Uh… Which class?"

"Math."

"Let me think… I'm pretty sure it was page three eighty, numbers one through forty."

"Aw man…"

"Yea," sighed Ern, sharing his friend's lament.

They were interrupted by Ern's little brother, Ryan, telling him that they had to go. So Derik, Emily, and Nichole all said bye as Ern walked off toward his mom's car, a blue Yukon Excel.

"So, Nichole, how was your day?" Derik asked, smiling absently as he watched Emily chase after Vance, who had taken Emily's backpack.

"Oh, it was alright," she replied, nodding slightly.

"So, how's the wall-paper coming?"

"Oh, it's going pretty well."

"Yea?"

"Yep."

Bert stepped to the side as Vance ran by with Emily's water bottle in his hands.

"So, you gonna e-mail me sometime?" Nichole asked Derik. She secretly like Derik, secretly as in he knew and no one else did.

"Well, I don't know, Nichole, maybe I would if you emailed _me_ back," Derik said grinning.

"I'm pretty sure I _did_ e-mail you," she said smiling, her rosy freckled cheeks looking as nice as ever.

"Are you _absolutely_ sure?" Derik asked, raising one eyebrow skeptically.

"Yea, I'm pretty darn sure," she answered, looking at the cars behind Derik. "Oh, I've got to go!"

"Alright then," Derik said, waving goodbye, "Catch you later."

"Ok, bye!" Nichole said, waving goodbye as she climbed into her step dad's car.

As Derik stood by the fence watching everyone go about after school, he observed a sleek black SUV speed through the loop and screech to a halt in front of the school.

Watching the crowd for signs of anyone moving towards the car he spied Rudy looking at his cell phone, and then watched as he dashed for the suburban, slamming the door shut after him, and then watched as the SUV sped off, nearly hitting another car.

"Huh, weird," Derik muttered to himself.

There were thirty of them in all, each and every one of them African-American, walking in the shadows of dusk. They were rather young, being about an average age of seventeen. Seven were carrying visible weapons, mostly pump-action shotguns, except for two, one of which was a beautiful bolt-action rifle that had a large, black scope perched on top. The other long gun was an Ak-47, and not of the semi-auto kind, but a class three firearm.

The other twenty-three people were carrying various handguns, mostly semi-automatic; with a few exceptions, the most notable being a Smith & Wesson 500 revolver.

Their destination appeared to be a warehouse among many, one that only stood out because the main doors seemed to have a sandbag bunker constructed in front of them, and the bay doors had similar setup involving many sand bags.

As the thirty people neared the warehouse they began to take up positions behind an old, burnt out semi truck and tanker trailer.

As they silently waited, some of them checking their weapons nervously as the silence pressed in from all sides, the boy with the scoped rifle entered one of the adjacent warehouses and climbed the stairs all the way to the roof. He then crept over to the edge of the roof and set up his rifle with a bi-pod and drew back the bolt, inserting a thirty ot six round into the breech, and pushed the bolt back forwards.

Peering into the scope, he observed the large sandbag bunker, looking for signs of life.

He spotted one person, a boy in his late teens, Caucasian, with an SKS clutched in his sweaty hands.

Grabbing slowly for his radio, he pressed the button and radioed one of the men below, whispering into it, "This is Big Meat, to Skinny Boy, we have one observed man in the sandbag bunker. Im'a gonna take that sucker out, and then you boys charge it, and toss one of 'em frags in there."

There was no reply, but he knew the other had heard. Peering into the scope, he grinned with a malicious, perverted pleasure as he zeroed the sights on the boy's forehead, and slowly pulled the trigger back.

_Crack!_

The thick silence was disturbed as the rifle jumped, and one person fell back, dead.

The boy watched as the shadows previously hidden behind the truck and trailer began silently forwards.

There was now yelling and screaming coming from the warehouse, and gunfire spurted from several of the windows.

From what he could hear there was several handguns and a few shotguns, and the rattle of automatic fire could be heard, most likely from and old world war two relic.

The shadows had now reached the warehouse's wall minus two and without firing a single shot, and the boy watched as one of the shadows threw something into the bunker.

A few seconds later there was a large, muffled explosion as the grenade detonated, and the general intensity of things increased.

The shadows were now entering through the breach, and the volume of the gunshots increased tenfold.

As he watched, though, a single shadow could been seen shambling towards the warehouse. Observing it through his scope, the boy couldn't discern anything, so, erring on the side of caution he drew the bolt back again and inserted another round, pushing it forwards again.

Centering the scope on the figure's chest, he pulled the trigger.

_Crack!_

And nothing.

"What?" The boy said to himself, "What the hell?"

Because the figure had only stumbled a little, and other than that was still moving at the same pace.

Drawing the bolt back again, he inserted another round into the breech and pushed the bolt back forwards.

_Crack!_

And still nothing! What the hell?

And then it was too late, the shambling figure had already reached the hole in the sandbag bunker and had entered the warehouse.

Grabbing his radio, the boy turned on the radio and said low and fast, "Yo man, you got someone coming in behind you guys, keep an eye out for him."

Again, there was no reply, but he knew the person on the other end had heard.

Several minutes passed with sporadic gunfire coming from inside the building, but nothing else. Then there was a scream, a blood-curdling bone shaking scream accompanied by the noise of some small caliber weapon going full-out. The screaming continued for several seconds and then died down.

It was then that the boy realized that all the gunfire had stopped for a moment. It was dead quiet in there.

And then there was the moan, a deep, guttural moan that permeated through the night air and chilled the boy to the bone.

"Fuck man, what the hell is going on down there?" the boy yelled into the radio, spit flying from his mouth.

No reply.

Suddenly a gunshot cut through the silence like a knife through hot butter, and the gunfire continued again as if everyone inside had just put the moan at the back of their heads.

The noise continued on until it was coming from one apparent location in the warehouse, and the shots were few and far between.

Then there was an influx in the amount of gunfire and yelling, and then someone screamed again and the gunfire continued for about thirty seconds, with screaming interspersed among it all.

Then there was no noise.

"What the _fuck_ is going on in there?!" the boy yelled into his radio. This only elicited several moans from inside the building.

And one from behind him.

Turning around the boy swore as he saw a shambling figure making its way across the rooftop towards him.

Pulling out a nine-millimeter pistol from a holster at his hip he opened fire at the figure, blowing of one of its fingers and part of its leg and arm, and opening several _new_ holes among several old ones.

_Click. Click click._ Click.

The boy fumbled for a new clip for his pistol, but was over run, and he began grappling with the thing, the thing that smelled like rotting shit.

Later, surveillance tapes showed two figures fall from the top of one of the warehouses, plummeting to the ground below.

Closing his math book Derik set it down on the coffee table and put his pencil next to it. He sighed, wondering if tomorrow would be as tiring as today was. Oh well, it didn't matter, being tired was a small price to pay for having such a great day.

Laying back on the couch Derik became mesmerized by the flames in the propane fireplace, watching as they licked at the glass.

The T.V. was on, but that didn't matter because to Derik it was just background noise.

_Uuuunnngggghhhh…_

Wait, that wasn't the television…

_Uuuunnngggghhhh…_

There it was again! What was that damned noise?

Getting up Derik walked over to the back door and opened it cautiously. Sensing that there was no immediate danger, he stepped out onto the deck and peered over the railing out into the dark, sloped forest below.

The only thing he could see, though, was the dim outline of the trees around him. The noise had stopped.

"Weird," he said aloud to himself.

Turning, he went inside and started to shut the house off for the night.

But outside, an undeniable evil lurked, ready to pounce on the no longer innocent frontier city of Fairbanks, Alaska.


	2. Day 2

Day Two

There was no noise, only shapes and feelings. Derik watched as the darkness turned into a hall with a quaint little house on the top of it. Then there a whistling sound moments before it exploded noiselessly, knocking Derik over and sending not debris, but minuscule droplets of water everywhere, making him feel cold and wet. Suddenly several dark shapes appeared in the sky, blotting out the sun, and fell towards the ground. The first one hit the ground and sent waves everywhere, as if the ground was water, and it made a strange beeping sound.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

The sound cut through Derik's grogginess like a knife, rousing him from sleep.

Lying there for a moment, he let consciousness seep into him, slowly checking over his body mentally. His legs felt like lead.

Pulling his arm out from underneath the blankets Derik groped around the shelf on the wall next to his bed for his glasses. His fingers found them, cold and metal, and grasped the frame tentatively, pulling them towards his head.

Pulling his other arm away from the warmth of the bed he opened the glasses frame and perched them on his nose.

Rousing himself Derik pulled back the blankets and sat up, sliding himself over to the edge of the bed with his legs dangling off the side. Propping his hands on the side of the bed Derik slid down about five feet to the cold floor.

The room was already awash with light from the sun outside, even though the alarm clock read 6:09. Walking across the messy floor Derik turned off the alarm clock. Standing there he stretched his legs and arms before walking over to his closet and pausing there in a still half-groggy stupor.

Looking vacantly at the clothes before him he pulled out a large brown tee-shirt with a picture of Stewie Griffin and a ray gun on it and a pair of black boxer briefs and some socks. Turning around he left the closet and headed towards the door, grabbing a pair of fairly worn jeans from where they lay across the top of a wooden dining room chair in front of a desk that had a large computer monitor on top of it.

Opening the door he stepped into the oddly shaped boxy hallway and across it into the bathroom, closing the door.

Walking by the sink Derik threw the clothes into a pile in the corner of the bathroom before stripping down and using the toilet. After that he started the shower, letting the water run for a few seconds in order to warm up.

Stepping into the shower he let the hot water wash over his back for about a minute before he applied soap to a bath scrubby and lathering himself down. Stepping back into the water he let it rinse all the soap off of his body. Sniffing his armpits in order to make sure they passed the smell test Derik reached for a clear plastic bottle full of green stuff and poured some into his hand, then lathering his hair with it.

He was finished with the shower a few minutes later, turned off the water, and stepped out letting the water drip off his body and onto the shower mat on the floor for a few seconds. Then Derik reached for a towel of the nearby towel rack and dried himself off, stepping over to the pile of clothes that lay in one corner of the room, throwing on the underwear, pants, and shirt in that order.

Derik then walked over to the bathroom door and opened it, entering a different house where people were actually awake and active, where people were cooking downstairs and eating and talking.

Walking into his parent's bedroom Derik sat down on his mom's side of the bed and started to put on his socks.

"Yo, mom, it's time to get up," he said, pulling his left sock up on his foot.

"Just a few more minutes," she mumbled, waving her hand at him.

"Alright, whatever you say," Derik replied, getting up and going downstairs.

Walking into the kitchen Derik took a cup from one of the cabinets and poured himself a generous amount of milkshake from the blender.

"Morning, D," Derik's dad said from where he stood in front of the counter making lunches.

"Morning dad," he said, taking a drink from the liquid, savoring that particular morning strawberry taste.

"Morning Derik," said Derik's little cousin, Colin, who was sitting at the kitchen island with his brother Evan and Derik's brother George.

"Morning Colin. Morning Evan. Morning G-man," Derik said, sitting down at the end of the island. "Yo, dad, I'm going upstairs," Derik asserted, before he could be sucked into any conversation.

"Alright, keep an ear out for your mother."

"Alright," Derik answered, climbing up the stairs and going into his room.

Sitting down at the same chair he'd pulled his pants from before he set his drink down on the cluttered desk and reached down to press a button on his computer, turning it on. The fans inside started to whir and one of them made the occasional clattering noise as it bumped against its casing. This was, unfortunately, unfixable.

Entering a password Derik logged in on his account and waited as windows and all the other associated programs started up. Once this was done he pressed a button on his mouse which started Windows Media Player and double clicked on the Internet Explorer icon. As these programs started up Derik logged in on MSN.

Closing the two windows that popped up and making sure he had no new e-mails Derik started up some J.B.O., a German rock band. Selecting the IE window Derik surfed for a while, about half an hour, before he was alerted to the fact that it was time to go by the stopping of the shower, which meant his mother was out of the shower.

Pressing the same button as before Derik stood up, finishing the rest of his shake in one go. Making sure his pockets were laden with the necessary writing utensils, a few mechanical pencils and a pen or two, and that he had a pack of gum in his pockets.

'_Oh yea,' _Derik thought to himself, remembering that there was a social after school, _'I should probably put on some deodorant.'_

So, putting on some deodorant Derik headed downstairs and stuffed his lunch in the second compartment of his backpack, slipped on his shoes, and dashed out the front door and down the porch steps towards his mom's car, a huge and bulky Dodge Durango.

Jumping inside he put his backpack on the floor and buckled his seat belt, putting the keys that he took from the counter in the ignition and starting the car, purely so that he could listen to music. Things like Puddle of Mudd and the sort.

Closing his eyes Derik relaxed for a few minutes as he waited for his mom and brother and cousins to get into the car.

* * *

Downes St. – 6:19 A.M.

Meanwhile, in a run down part of Fairbanks the shit had already hit the fan.

Police cruisers had set up barricades on either end of Downes St. and radioing in for orders on what to do with the sixteen shambling figures, six on each end, who were beating their fists against the barricades and the four who were beating against the door of one of the better looking houses.

Officer Ryan Haydukovich stood with his pistol covering the five figures at his barricade with four other cops, while one of them contacted the station. They hadn't tried communication or non-lethal weapons after they saw the 'trio' as they called them, a trio of people who shambled together and had a myriad of fatal injuries.

One of them was missing an entire arm and was missing half his face, caked blood all over his plain clothes. The second simply had no stomach, it just wasn't there. Instead there was a ragged hole that had torn looking edges and a lung hanging down inside the hole. The third was different in the way that it had only one missing finger. The interesting part was the blood caked around its mouth and had two large ragged holes in his upper chest, probably from a thirty caliber rifle, and dozens of littler holes that looked like they had come from a small caliber weapon. None of them bled anything except black, putrid ooze.

Finally a decision had been reached as the officer that had been on the radio declared that a Tactical Police Team was being directed and would be there in about twenty five minutes.

"So, what do we do?" asked one of the cops who was armed with a pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun.

"Sit here and wait," replied the one who had been using the radio, Lauren.

"Damn," said Ryan, "That's a really damn long time to stand here pointing guns at people." There was a murmur of agreement.

"Well too damned bad," answered Lauren.

But about five minutes in things got interesting.

Crack!

"Crap, what was that?" yelled one of the other cops, a new guy whose name was Eric.

"Look! Over by that house!" yelled another officer, Drew, "They got in!"

Indeed, the figures had gotten in the house, and there was a great deal of screaming and gunshots coming from inside. Not little pistol rounds, but the big booming of a shotgun.

Lauren was already back on the radio yelling into it as the people on the other side of the barricade started moaning loudly and reaching vigorously for the police officers.

Someone then swore loudly as a person jumped from a window in the house and landed with a thud on the lawn, a short and fat boy with a revolver. Behind him were arms reaching out of the window, and the shotgun blasts had ended.

As he stood up and began to run towards the thing that caught his eye the most, the flashing police barricades in front of officer Haydukavich, two more figures _fell_ out of the window, one landing funny on its neck and not moving any more except for its head which writhed angrily. The other landed on its right leg and had a femur now sticking out of its thigh as it obliviously crawled towards the boy.

The boy stopped a second later as he realized that there were six people now shambling towards him that were between him and the barricade, with the same going on behind him.

Raising the revolver he fired two rounds at the approaching figures, one round missing completely and the other hitting one person in the gut. He fired several more rounds, three to be exact, missing again, hitting one person in the shoulder, and blowing the top of one person's head clean off.

Cops and boy alike watched as he fell down to the pavement in a bloody heap. It was the only thing that had stopped any of them so far.

By this time Officer Haydukovich and three other cops had jumped the barricades and were running forwards with their weapons raised and one of them yelled for the boy to get down.

He complied, lying on his side as he attempted to reload the revolver as gunfire erupted from the four officers.

Officer Haydukovich pulled the trigger on his pistol, sending a nine-millimeter round low into the abdomen of one figure. Several nine-millimeter rounds and some buckshot from the guns of the other three officers took down two figures in a spray of bone and blood. By then Haydukovich had taken another head into his sights and he pulled the trigger again, sending a third figure to the floor.

There was a loud crack and a figure to everyone's left hit the floor, killed by a five point five six round from the AR-15 of the other group of officers.

A shotgun round, a few more nine-millimeters and two more corpses later the four officers had reached the boy and were helping him to his feet. As the five people retreated the one person that had been crawling on the ground took a bite out of Officer Drew's ankle, crunching bone and flesh alike.

Drew fell to the pavement swearing as his gun clattered to the ground, and the other officers turned to look, Lauren raising her pistol and firing several rounds into the crazed freak, until the hammer struck nothing again and again.

Ejecting the empty clip he put it back in his belt and inserted a fresh one into the gun and cocked it.

Officer Ryan helped up Drew and helped him limp back to the barricades, where the tactical team had arrived and was approaching them already, guns raised.

"Drop your weapons and get down on the ground now!" shouted one of the T.P.T. members. "Down, now!"

"Wait, what? I'm not getting on that fucking ground you moron!" yelled Ryan, straining to support Drew.

"You're all under arrest until further notice for homicide," replied the T.P.T. officer, keeping his MP5 aimed at the officer as the other T.P.T. members headed towards the other six shambling figures, who had diverted their attention back to the other barricade.

There were sounds of gunfire, and the officers could see several more figures hit the ground.

* * *

Barnette Magnet School Entrance – 8:49 A.M.

Derik rushed his cousins and brother into the school since they were late, again. Evan and Colin rushed off to their classroom, and Derik walked his brother, George, to his classroom though. Derik was cool with his brother.

After dropping his brother Derik headed upstairs at a leisurely pace and crammed all his stuff in his locker, just as the bell rang to signal class switching.

"Score!" he said to himself. Stalling was something he'd mastered.

Opening his locker again he grabbed his backpack and closed his locker again, making his way towards the school entrance.

While waiting for Ernie and Breanne Derik grabbed a paper and scanned the headlines, before stuffing that in his backpack as well.

The three of them then proceeded to walk together out of school and towards the nearby high school where they took Geometry with the high schoolers.

The way there was cold an uneventful, since the high school was only five hundred feet from Barnette.

The halls were crowded with teenagers as they all switched classes. There were people talking, goofing off, and panicking because they'd lost their homework.

On their way through the crowded halls the three of them would sometimes stop to chat with people they knew.

Today was such a day, and Derik and Ernie were talking with their friend Jeff, whom they knew from a martial arts school they all attended.

"Yea, I hear BioHazard 5 is set to release in 2008!" that was Derik, talking excitedly about the game he couldn't wait to play.

"Yea, and that's a looooong time from now," said Ernie resentfully.

"Yea. Hey, RainGear Chronicles comes out soon! Like only a month left!" and that was Jeff, a tall light brown skinned boy who wore glasses and was very thin and gangly.

Their conversation was interrupted by the bell though, so the three of them went to their separate classes.

Ernie and Derik barely made it in time to avoid getting in trouble and sat down where they were supposed to.

Ernie right behind Breanne because of their last name, and Derik right up against the left wall of the room and towards the back, something he much enjoyed as it allowed him some flexibility in goofing off.

Class started with a review of the homework, which Derik almost aced except for three problems that he made silly mistakes on because of rushing.

Then they took notes. When his teacher said, "Now class, take out your notebooks and a pen or pencil," Derik heard this: "Class, take out your MP3 player and your notebook and a writing utensil and rock on!!!"

He was weird like that.

But he did exactly what he heard, taking out his MP3 player and listening to music with the earphone for his right ear so that nobody, well, the teacher, couldn't see him listening.

And he still churned out grade A notes as usual.

At the end of class Derik, Ernie and, Breanne were beginning to leave when the intercom came on and the vice principal came on telling everyone to go to their homerooms and stay there.

But Derik, Ernie, and Breanne didn't have home rooms so they stayed with their math teacher, Mrs. Helgeson.

Outside dark rain clouds were boiling in the sky.

The intercom came on once more, this time with the principal speaking. "Everyone is to stay where they are, as we are going into a code red lock down. Doors are to be locked and shades pulled down, with all lights turned off. You are allowed to talk, though. Thank you."

These words had a chilling effect. What a strange day this was turning out to be. Why was the school in lock down? Was his brother ok? And why were they still allowed to talk but not have lights on?

These questions bothered him as the four of them sat in the class room, Mrs. Helgeson at her computer busily e-mailing other people as she tried to figure out what was going on, Breanne doing her homework at one desk, Ernie reading a sci-fi book in another corner, and Derik listening to music and playing Solitaire with a pack of cards he'd found in his backpack.

As it turned out, they'd be sitting around for quite a while.

* * *

Lathrop High School – 11:54 A.M.

Two hours had passed now, and the room was getting stuffy. Not to mention that, but Derik was getting hungry and he had to piss like a sonuvabitch.

The four of them had had no reliable news so far, and the rain was pounding against the windows. And that mixed with no lights and a hot stuffy room made for a very unpleasant experience.

Derik sat on a desk next to the same wall he'd been at before, and he was contemplating whether or not to just go into the hallway and down to the bathroom and take a piss.

It took him a few minutes, but he decided he would. So, standing up and laying his MP3 on the desk Derik strode over to the door and quietly opened it, unlocking it with his fingers and taping the actual latching part of the door so that it couldn't open.

And he left.

Apparently no one had noticed.

But he ran down the hall towards the bathroom just in case.

Opening the door to the bathroom Derik slipped inside and let it close silently behind him before looking at the bathroom itself.

It was fairly large, about twenty feet long and about seven feet wide with four stalls on the back left walls and three urinals next to it; and right next to those were three sinks. The walls and floor were a dark tan and the stalls a drab green. The only light was from a single fixture and the light it cast was shadowy and not very plentiful. And on top of all that a ridiculously loud fan made it near impossible to hear.

Derik wasted no time in getting out of there, since it creeped him out. Walking up to a urinal he relived himself and then zipped up his pants and washed his hands, then drying them off with paper towels.

He left just as fast.

Now that he was back in the empty hallway, though, he took his time, walking at a leisurely pace as he examined everything. It all checked out with him.

Reaching the door to Mrs. Helgeson's room Derik stopped and cautiously stopped, trying the doorknob as slowly as he could. It wasn't locked.

As he was about to enter the room again Derik thought he'd heard a strange moaning noise, and paused, listening hard. Nothing. It must have been in his imagination.

Sliding quietly back in Derik undid the tape behind him and locked the door, closing it just as quietly.

Glancing over at Mrs. Helgeson he saw that she was asleep. Huh. He'd gone through all that trouble for nothing.

Ah well.

Back to playing Solitaire.

And outside the rain continued to pour, hiding in its shadows abominations that god never intended to exist.

* * *

1428 Hans Way - 12:26 P.M.

Jason Williams was sitting at his desk, staring vacantly at the two computer monitors in front of him. One of them had instant messaging windows where he was talking to many different people at the same time while simultaneously working and listening to music. Over in a large air bed behind him sat his wife Michele, who was watching T.V., having taken the day off.

As he was working Jason faintly heard his wife gasp over the sound of his headphones, so he turned to look, just to be sure.

And looking at the television he was confused. Just moments ago she'd been watching a movie on B.B.C., but now there was what appeared to be live news footage showing downtown Fairbanks from some sort of tall rooftop. Down below in the streets was a scene of complete chaos with people screaming and running around, several cars plowing slowly through the mess, and a select few people were stumbling around after the nearest person, arms groping towards the people.

Some popping sort of sounds could be heard off screen, and more screaming as someone fell from a window across the street. The two of them watched in horror as one of the stumbling figures grabbed a hold of someone and bit down into their neck, and again, sending the person writhing to the ground as the quickly died from blood loss and suffocation, lay still as the other person shambled away.

And then came the surprise, as that some freshly dead person rose back from the ground only seventeen seconds later, writhing for a moment before rising back to a standing position and shambling for a nearby woman.

At about this time a male news reporter began to speak: "At around five A.M. today the police received reports of disturbances in various neighborhoods around town and in the surrounding areas. Police and State Troopers responded only to find that the people calling in for missing, leaving behind bloody and confusing crime scenes, or were under assault by large groups of apparently drugged people that had huge gaping wounds in some cases, and seemed to only retain a primitive intelligence and limited motor skills. Some officers recognized these symptoms from the Raccoon incident in Pennsylvania and from the subsequent outbreak in 2001 in New York. The symptoms were from a virus now known and feared as the T-Virus which was able to re-animate the dead, with the added bonus of an unsatiable hunger for human flesh."

"They opened fire and were able to contain a great many potential outbreaks, but it seems it wasn't enough as we can now see from one of our street cameras in downtown Fairbanks, where the dead indeed walk again. The police chief and mayor both released a statement together earlier today, saying that all people are to stay in their homes or workplaces, or wherever they happen to be and stay out of the streets. They are to barricade the structures accordingly, destroying stairways and staying in the upper levels if possible."

"People, it seems, did not listen. According to an estimate given by the police chief the undead numbers are already in the ten thousands area, which is puzzling everyone. How could such a slow acting virus infect so many people that quickly, in only a few hours? The answer seems to be that this virus is bringing the dead back in around one to five minutes, much faster than before. This new crisis has already engulfed most of downtown, bringing all order to shambles."

The talking stopped for a moment as muttering and hurried conversing was heard in the background.

"This just in: the police chief has ordered a curfew. All vehicles seen driving about that do not have permission will be dealt with accordingly. Forces at Ft. Wainwright are being mobilized in order to help curb the undead menace and Martial Law is now engaged, though, without Congressional approval. Forces are also being mobilized elsewhere in Alaska and the lower forty-eight in order to keep the outbreak from spreading. And last, but not least, parents are told to not worry about their children; they will be evacuated by helicopter to Eielson Air Force Base."

The T.V. was switched off as Jason ran downstairs, throwing on his shoes and Michele rummaged through the drawer next to her bedside. She pulled out a small key and set it down on the table, going to the closet and pulling down a finely crafted, beautiful wooden box. Inserting the key she pulled a Ruger Redhawk .44 magnum, which had a scope mounted on the barrel. There was also a box of twenty rounds. Closing the box and grabbing it and the key she raced downstairs, setting it on the kitchen counter. Throwing on her shoes as well she ran outside, joining her husband in the basement downstairs, which was separate from the rest of the house.

He had already pulled out a black Mossberg pump-action shotgun and had it hanging over his shoulder by a strap, and was now rummaging farther back, pulling out a brown rifle case that was currently zipped up.

Handing it to his wife he said, "Hey, bring that into the kitchen and put it on the counter and come back downstairs."

She ran out carrying the rifle case as Jason stood up a metal gun case that had a small lock on it and stood it up next to the door. He then grabbed a compound bow and a quiver full of arrows as well as a .22 rifle that looked like a Thompson submachine gun. It had not full-auto capabilities though.

Running back up towards the door he told Michele to grab the gun case as he deposited what he had now on the counter. Speeding through the door and towards the counter he stopped and deposited his bow and arrows as well as the .22 and the Mossberg on the counter. Stepping back he looked at what they had assembled so far: a .22, a pump-action twelve-gauge, a .44, a compound bow, and a bolt-action rifle. Not enough. Running back downstairs he passed Michele who was busy toting the gun case up to the house. Once he was in the cramped basement again he looked around for anything they may have missed, and after a moment grabbed a spare AR-15 barrel and a black handgun case.

Bringing these upstairs he set them on the counter and promptly ran back outside, making a quick trip to the BigFoot camper trailer, grabbing a .357 revolver and some ammunition for it from a cabinet, and a box of ten fifty caliber rounds from another cabinet before heading back to the house and grabbing two boxes of one hundred .22 long rounds from the back of his jeep.

His wife had already unlocked the case and had taken out a small pump-action .22 and an AR-15 with two thirty round clips and a red dot sight. Also in there were almost a thousand rounds of .22 short and a box of twenty five point five six millimeter rounds for the AR.

It only took them a moment, but they soon had everything laid out on the counter in a neat and orderly way.

A quick inventory showed that they had the following:

First there were long guns, which included two .22's. One was a pump-action that took .22 long rounds, of which there were one thousand, give or take. The other was a Thompson style that took .22 long rounds, of which there were again, about a thousand. There was also the .30-06 Model seven hundred, which was a bolt action rifle with a blued barrel and wooden furniture and had twenty rounds of ammunition and no scope. Then there was the Mossberg 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, which had no ammunition and was completely black. Last was the AR-15, an original Colt and was about twenty years old. It was currently fitted with a Vietnam style barrel but had a spare that was more like an M4's barrel. There were only twenty rounds for the AR.

Then there were the three hand guns. One was a .357 magnum revolver manufactured by Ruger which had 18 rounds and blued metal. The second was a .44 magnum, a Redhawk, which had eighteen rounds as well and was made of stainless steel and had a scope. Lastly, but by far the coolest was an FN Five seveN which Jason had borrowed from his father, who was out of town. It was your standard black semi-auto pistol, except it fired the five point seven millimeter round and had a twenty round clip. For that they had fifty rounds.

And then there were ten rounds of fifty BMG, which had been meant for Jason's father's M82A1 rifle.

"Ok, I want you to take the .357," said Jason, grabbing the gun and its holster, as well as its ammunition and handing it to Michele, who strapped it around her waist and put the box of ammunition in her front pocket. Jason continued: "I'm going to take the semi-auto."

* * *

12:41 P.M. - Lathrop High School

Ernie had stopped reading his book, setting it aside to play war with Derik, as had Breanne. The three of them sat around the desk with their cards and all in piles, with Breanne equally close to both guys. They each laid down their three cards, Derik a jack, Breanne a five, and Ernie a queen.

"Powned," Ernie said, scooping up all the cards and putting them in his war spoils pile.

They were each laying down their cards again when gunshots sounded out from outside in the rain. They sounded relatively close.

"Damn man," swore Derik as he jumped up towards the windows, peering into the dim light outside.

There were two people that looked like cops running towards the high school's front doors. They had now reached them and one was desperately trying to open the locked doors. The other cop had turned around and was firing a pistol at an oncoming group of about a dozen shambling figures. The other had given up on the door and had turned around, aiming what looked like a shotgun at the crowd and firing. Apparently it was, even from that distance it hurt Derik's ears somewhat.

"Shit man, someone's gotta get down there and let them in..." Ernie said, pointing out the obvious.

"Yea. You two stay here. I'll be right back..." said Derik, dashing towards the door and flinging it open. Speeding down the hallway Derik nearly fell over at the end where he had to turn and dash for the stairs. Throwing himself down the stairs at dangerous speeds Derik nearly hurt his leg as he jumped the last six steps. Collecting himself he turned and made the final dash for the doors, flinging one open and letting the cops in just in time, and then slamming it shut.

Panting extremely heavily Derik slumped against a nearby wall, muttering that he was 'really bent outta shape'.

"Holy fuck man," gasped one of the cops, leaning against a wall. "Damnit, those sons of bitches don't fucking die!" That was the cop with the shotgun. He was really big, one of those people are just tall and broad, extremely huge. His hair was blond and his eyes were light brown. "Thanks kid. You saved our asses."

"Yea," said the other cop, a medium height man with brown hair and dark brown eyes. "That was fucking close."

Both were soaked from the rain.

"Here, kid, take this," said the big cop, handing Derik the Glock 22 that was on a holster at his side and two fifteen round magazines for it. "It's the least I can do to reward someone for something like that at a time like this."

"Holy... Shit, thanks man," panted Derik, taking the gun and the clips gratefully.

"Don't mention it. Now, what classroom were you in? I'm probably gonna need to explain to your teacher what happened," said the big cop. "By the way, I'm officer Haydukovich, and this is my buddy Drew."

"Nice to meet both of you," said Derik, extending his hand for the others to shake.

"Yea, same here," said Drew, shaking Derik's hand.

"Yea, well, my teacher like, fell asleep or something earlier, and she hasn't woken up... Oh shit." Derik began running again, the two other cops running behind him.

They crashed through the door, guns raised. But everything was as it should be. There were Ernie and Breanne, sitting in one corner looking shocked at the three, and there was Mrs. Helgeson, slumped over her desk. She was still breathing, it seemed.

"Thank god," breathed Derik, lowering the gun.

"What?" asked Ernie, sounding bewildered.

"Yea, geez," said Breanne.

"Thought Mrs. Helgeson was gonna eat you..." muttered Derik.

"What?!" spluttered Ernie, looking even more confused.

"I put two and two together man! You remember that shit that happened in Raccoon City and then in New York? With those morons at Umbrella? Well, Jesus, this looks like the same fucking thing!" explained Derik.

"Exactly," said Drew, who was over by Mrs. Helgeson, where he'd apparently been checking her pulse. "Except, these fuckers seem to rise within seconds of death. It's crazy. The military's been mobilized and everything."

"Damn." said Ernie.

"Yea..." said Breanne.

"So... Why are we staying _here_, of all places?" asked Derik.

"Good question," said officer Haydukovich. "It looks like the rain is letting up. Our cruiser is outside. We can probably make it there before any undead freaks reach us. We can decide what to do from there."

"What 'bout everyone else?" asked Derik.

"There's choppers on the way to pick them up I wouldn't worry if I were you. But I'm not putting my faith in the military. Now are you guys ready to go?" asked Officer Drew.

"Just a sec, let us get our stuff," said Ernie.

As the three kids got their stuff, putting it all in their backpacks the two cops conversed about the teacher.

"It's weird. She has a faint pulse, and her breathing is light. But I poked her with my knife and she still wouldn't wake up."

"Yea. I dunno what's with her. We'll just leave her here."

* * *

1:01 P.M. - 1428 Hans Way

It had stopped raining, the clouds had drained themselves and the sun had finished them off. The sky was almost completely clear already.

The William's house was vastly different from how it had looked a half hour ago. Already Jason and Michele had demolished the stairs up to the porch and boarded the gap in the railing so no one could get up there. Next they had boarded up the rest of the low lying railing up with more wood that had been meant for the nearby garage. Then they had demolished a second set of stairs at the back which led to an enclosed area surrounded by chain link fence.

Next they had called Enthea Craven, a kindly but spry old lady who knew pretty much everyone in the neighborhood and had asked her if she had seen what was going on. She had, and they quickly decided that they would form a safe house at 1429 Hans Way and try and get as many people in the neighborhood there as possible.

She was now going from house to house in the neighborhood, explaining the situation to everyone who was home and leaving notes with instructions to those who weren't. She was accompanied by her son who had been visiting her at the time and Michele. She had the .357 of course, and Enthea's son had been given the .30-06 rifle and all its ammunition by Jason and Michele.

Enthea's husband and Jason stayed behind to gather all supplies, including a single shot bolt action .30-06 and a side-by-side double barrel twelve-gauge, along with twenty rounds for each. There was also a load of canned foods and non-perishables. They then also gathered all dishes and large containers and filled them with water.

They had just finished loading everything useful from Enthea's house into the safe house when a red pick-up truck arrived, a small amount of canned goods and some gear in the back.

A fairly old man who looked to be about forty-five climbed out of the driver's side of the vehicle with a stainless steel revolver in a holster at his side.

"Hey there. This the safe house that Enthea was talkin' 'bout?" he asked, leaning against the side of his truck.

"Yea," answered Jason. "And who might you be?"

"I'm Larry Devenheimer," the man said. "And who might you be?"

"I'm Jason Williams," Jason said, "good to meet you Larry. Now, what sorta supplies have you brought with you?"

"I've got enough canned food for one person for about a week, a bunch of water in various containers, a hammer and some nails, a saw and an axe, uh... lemme think... Ah, yea, I also got several blankets and some various fruits and vegetables and my gun here. It's a .44 magnum like from Dirty Harry, and I have fifty rounds for it."

"Alright, John and I will help you move this stuff up here. Now, move it!"

And so the three men began to load the supplies from the truck up to the deck as the sun began to beat down on them.

* * *

1:47 P.M. - The Police Cruiser on University Avenue

The cruiser sped down the deserted four lane road at about seventy-five miles an hour. Every twenty feet or so a shambling figure could be seen waving its arms at them, usually covered in blood. Every once in a while they would pass a wrecked car, or even multiple wrecked vehicles.

Inside the vehicle the two cops sat up front with Officer Drew driving. In back Derik sat on the right side of the vehicle behind officer Haydukovich and Derik on the left behind Officer Drew. Breanne sat between both of them.

"So, where's your grand parent's house?" asked Officer Drew, glancing back at Derik.

"It's right by the post office next to the airport. You know, on Mail Trail Road?" answered Derik, looking out the window.

"So, we need to turn left onto the highway then, right?"

"Yea."

"So, why are we going to your grandparents house, again?" asked officer Haydukovich.

"Well," began Derik, "he's got a very large house with all the windows about four feet off the ground and the doors are really solidly built. Then he's got a monstrous garage about forty feet away from the house, and in there he's got a diesel generator, quite a bit of non-perishable food, and quite a bit of ammunition. On top of that there's a great machine shop in there. And then, if it ever comes down to it there's a pretty damn big garden out back to grow shit in and a greenhouse out front. And last, but not least, there's a whole fleet of batteries ready to use, and I think if used sparingly could go for quite a while."

"Huh. Sounds pretty damn good. But, you said ammo? How much and for what guns?" asked officer Haydukovich.

"Oh, yea. My grandpa has an FN Model 1910 chambered for .380 auto and about six hundred rounds for it, I think? Then he's got a .38 special and about two hundred rounds for that. He also has a coach gun and about fifty rounds for that. Other wise, I'm not sure what guns he has. He does seem to hoard .22 long ammo and a lot of .270 and .308 Winchester hoarded, so I'm assuming he has guns for all of that."

"Yea? Sounds pretty damn good. I feel pretty lucking for coming across someone who knew where such a great safe place is."

"You better be."

By now the cruiser had turned left onto the highway and was just driving over the Chena River, a twenty foot ride murky brown river that fed into the Tanana River. They were over it pretty fast and then began to slow down to take the off ramp onto Airport Way heading down to the post office.

As they drove along a black hawk helicopter flew over head, heading back towards town. After that the airport came into view. It was small compared to the airports of larger cities, but it served its purpose well. In the parking lot quite a few cars could be seen and around eight planes sat grounded on the tarmac, half of them with foreign markings.

Speeding past the airport they came closer to Mail Trail Road, slowing down in order to make the turn.

At the end of the forty foot road was another perpendicular road and a rather rough looking driveway overshadowed by many trees.

"Ok, down the driveway," said Derik, peering around the side of officer Haydukovich's seat.

"Alrighty," said officer Drew as he turned down the driveway. "Left or right?" he asked as he reached a split in the driveway.

"Right," answered Derik. "And there we are."

Before them stood a fairly large two story house with dark cedar siding. There was a clear front entrance with a small front porch and a white door and to the side were a larger deck and another door. The greenhouse was there as well, and two cars sat out front. One was a beautiful old Mercedes, and the other was a gold Eagle. In a small notch in the thick woods sat a large motor home and in another was a silver Eagle.

"Alrighty, just park next to the Mercedes," Derik said, motioning to the empty spot.

Officer Drew pulled the car up to the spot and shut it off, opening his door. It was quiet outside except for the sound of the Chena River nearby and the occasional nearby gunshot.

"Hey, kid, are your grandparents home?" asked officer Haydukovich, sweeping the area with his shotgun raised.

"Nope, they're out of state. My grandpa is getting some surgery done on one of his lungs down on the East Coast. So, they're not here," answered Derik as he walked up to the front door.

"So, how do you plan to get in the damned house?" That was Officer Drew.

"With keys, of course. Duh," replied Derik as he pulled some keys from his left ass pocket.

"Oh."

"Yea." Derik finished unlocking the door and opened it wide. "Make yourselves at home unless your house is a mess."

The room they first entered was an entryway that had a small table with a lamp and a closet, and two doors leading to other parts of the house. One was closed, but the other was open and led on to an 'L' shaped room which had stairs and a closet, and several shelves and tables, a computer tucked away in one corner, and a door next to the computer as well as an archway that led into a living room.

"Follow me, if you all would?" said Derik as he walked on through to the living room. Everyone complied.

The room itself was rectangle shaped and had wooden flooring. There was only one window and that was about six feet wide and four feet high. Spread out across the room were two armchairs, one rocking chair, one 'L' shaped couch, an oil stove on a stone platform an inch across the ground, and a huge piece of storage space/television keeper. The T.V. it surrounded was about five feet across and nearly as tall. The couch partially surrounded a coffee table that sported square glass panes and some beautiful dark wood. The two armchairs and the rocking chair all faced the T.V., while the couch was at the other end of the room, which was approximately twenty feet long and twelve wide. Opposite the one window was a closet, and another open archway seemed to lead to a kitchen/dining area.

"So, this is the main living room, and I figure it will probably be a last defense area to pull back to if it ever comes to that. In here is one gun... Err... The coach gun I think. Ernie, check the closet over there. It's covered by a grey gun sock," explained Derik as he motioned towards the closet. "Officers, if you'll just mosey on into the kitchen there's a thirty-eight special above the refrigerator and a box of ammo. I'll help Ernie rifle through this closet."

The cops nodded as they headed into the kitchen, conversing quietly.

"What do you want me to do?" this was Breanne. Derik had nearly forgotten about her.

"Well... Can you go through all the drawers and cabinets over there and see if there's any ammo or any guns?"

"Ok."

"Hey, is this it?" asked Ernie, pulling a grey gun shaped object from the closet.

"Yes, yes it is. And up here is some ammo... It seems we have two five hundred round boxes of twenty two long rounds and two eight round boxes of three and a half inch shotgun shells... Ah, and another box of thirty three and a half inch _magnum_ rounds. How special. You wanna take these into the kitchen and set them all on the table?"

"Eh, sure."

As Derik and Ernie headed for the kitchen Derik stopped and told Breanne that they'd be in the kitchen. In the kitchen the two police officers were conversing in low voices, but they stopped as soon as they saw Ernie and Derik walk in.

"You guys find it?" Derik asked, setting the ammunition on the table.

"Yea, it's right over there on the counter," answered Officer Haydukavich.

"Alrighty... Lemme' think for a moment..." Derik said as he closed his eyes for a moment. "Ok, so, we have five guns here right now, right? So that's one for each of us. Now, I would personally prefer to hand over this gun to Ernie and take the revolver, and if you don't mind Officer Drew, would you take the coach gun and hand your Glock to Breanne?"

"Well, I'll take it if you guys want. Hell, I'm probably the second biggest guy here anyways."

"Great. So, here you are Ernie..." Said Derik as he handed over the Glock and the two clips he had. "And here you go, officer," he said as he handed Officer Drew the coach gun and the ammunition for it. "And I'll take that and that... Thank you."

At that point Breanne came in empty handed. "I found nothing," she said dejectedly.

"Well, you can take this, then," answered Derik as he handed her the gun and the two clips. "Do you two know how to use those?" he asked.

"Yea, I think I can figure it out." That was Ernie.

"Not a clue." That was Breanne.

"Well... Ernie, you wanna take Breanne into the living room back there and teach her how to use it," asked Derik as he raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"Sure thing man." And the two headed off back into the other room together.

Derik turned around to face the officers again. "Now that were here I figure I can set things straight and hold down the fort. As for you guys... Do you wanna head out and help the local police forces in helping fight the undead or whatever? You could let them all know that there's a safe place here."

"Well, we were talking about it, but we didn't know if we should leave all of you here... But if you guys are alright with it..." that was Officer Drew.

"Yea, we can hold things down pretty well. I'm just remembering my grandpa telling me about two semi-auto .22's he had, so we could probably give back your guys' pistols."

"Alright. Are you sure you guys don't need any help?" asked officer Haydukavich.

"Yea, we'll be fine."

Little did Derik know that those words would be tested over and over in the next few days.

* * *

2:44 P.M. - Lathrop High

The sounds of helicopters could be heard overhead and if you looked out the windows you could see helicopters buzzing everywhere. The classrooms were slowly being emptied one at a time and progress was slow, even with the helicopters bringing the students to trucks only at the edges of town.

Inside the halls there were soldiers everywhere, mostly with M16's in their hands, but there was the occasional M249 SAW and an M14 every once in a while.

At the end of the West wing four men were going from classroom to classroom, checking on how many people were there. They had just come to a room next to the stairs that appeared to be empty. It was unlocked though, so they entered. Inside was just a normal classroom that seemed completely fine. Except... There were several overturned desks and everything around the teacher's area was strewn everywhere.

"There doesn't seem to be anybody here. Let's turn off the lights and lock the door behind us," said one soldier, a Sgt. McKellan.

"Yessir," replied another closing it behind them. _'Oh, I forgot to lock it,'_ he thought to himself, opening it for a moment as he groped around on the knob on the other side. He almost had the knob when he felt the unseen presence of something on the other side. Some **BIG**.

Pulling his hand out quickly the Pvt. accidentally pulled the door open as well, and what he saw on the other side froze him for a moment.

The creature was most definitely the most fucked up looking thing he had ever seen. It was about eight feet tall, and about three wide. It was just barely humanoid in shape, for it had legs and arms and a head, but that was where the similarities ended. The thing was covered in mottled black skin and had bright red slits for eyes. It had no nose to speak of, nor any hair, and it seemed completely sexless. Its arms ended in three two foot long claws that were viciously curved. But the scariest thing was the mouth, a mouth that seemed to have endless, rippling rows of razor sharp teeth.

It was the last thing he ever saw. A moment later he was tossed aside with one swipe, his left arm and his abdomen horribly mangled.

"Holy shit!" cried McKellan as he turned around, raising his M16 to his shoulder.

_Bududap. Bududapbududap!_

The Sgt. had begun to fire his M16's three round bursts in quick succession, but the small five point five six rounds were doing little to slow the creature down.

The receiver suddenly clicked dry as the monstrosity began to slowly stumble forwards, seeming to be still getting used to its legs, and McKellan fumbled trying to find another magazine for his weapon.

The thing was just about four feet from him when something loud rattled on full-auto and rounds could be seen tearing up the wall to the left of the creature and the thing's right side. It stopped and slowly turned to the new threat, slowly beginning to walk faster as it became used to its legs.

By now a myriad of guns were firing and there was much yelling as the thing kept down the hall after its new prey, letting out a loud gurgling sound. The rounds didn't seem to do anything at all.

Out of the blue somebody yelled, "Everyone get back! Now!" And just as McKellan turned around the corner to fire again he saw someone with an M203 mounted under their barrel fire from the other end of the hallway, about fifty feet away. He barely had time to get back behind the wall before the grenade hit the thing head on, blowing out its insides and wrecking one of its arms and one of its legs.

Everything was quiet... There wasn't a sound. And then everyone began to breath sighs of relief and someone asked for a casualty report. McKellan moved cautiously forwards towards the thing with his gun raised; even though it was lying face down on the ground he didn't think it would go that easily.

He and four other solders were now surrounding the corpse, and one made the mistake of cautiously kicking the body with his boot. The corpse writhed for a moment before swing its good arm along the floor at the man who had kicked it, effectively cutting out both of his feet and sending him crashing to the floor, where the creature's mouth latched on his right shoulder, the rows of teeth grinding through at an inch a second as the man screamed. By now the four others had started firing again pointblank into the thing, tearing up it back and neck.

It shuddered for a moment and then died for good its mouth still twitching into the now dead soldier. Blood was everywhere, but none of it from the... _thing_.

McKellan backed up, light headed and weak kneed, slumping against a far wall. Glancing at the nameplate next to the door of the room that the thing had come from, the room that had appeared empty, he read the name 'Helgeson'.

"Ahaha... Maybe we'll call you Helga," he muttered at the huge corpse.

* * *

3:23 P.M. - 1428 Hans Way

The safe house was really burgeoning now, with nearly fifteen people already there. By now furniture had been rearranged inside to make space, and canned goods were piled high. All the vehicles that people had used to get there were now parked facing down the driveway just in case, and everyone was busily helping use wood from the garage to barricade the porch and the two doors that went into the house.

Inside in the main bedroom, the only room that remained safe from everyone else, being the master bedroom and all, the T.V. was running and showing the Fox news channel, where the reporter was busily talking about the crisis occurring in Fairbanks. He had been spewing out the same information for some time, talking about what people were speculating it was and how American military forces near and far were being mobilized to contain the threat.

Stopping for a minute he talked with someone off screen, before continuing to say, "Apparently just a few minutes ago the President of the United States agreed to receive help from Russia, and now Russia is already mobilizing its Army, sending upwards of fifty thousand men our way. The situation inside the city seems to worsen as this virus seems to be enhanced compared to last time, taking merely about a half a minute to re-animate the dead, but it seems to take the time it normally would when the victim is still living. It also seems that there are reports of monsters throughout the city. The entire world is watching with baited breath to see how this unfolds, and if rumors are true, it seems Umbrella has struck again."

Granted, no one was in the room to listen to the reporter spout his information as everyone was either downstairs or outside working.

By now the total amount of people was in the twenty's, with around five children, and half the people were military.

The noise from all the work they were doing was quite great, and a side affect of this was that a rather steady flow of the undead were now bearing down upon them in ones and twos, being cut down by one or two shots from various peoples firearms.

Every time one was spotted or heard someone would yell, "Freeze!" and everyone would stop what they were doing and make their way towards the deck if they weren't on it until the zombie was killed. Then everyone began to set about working again. One of the things they were doing was setting up an impromptu raised walkway that was about six feet tall over to the garage, where a moveable ladder provide access to the second floor, where many more supplies were being brought.

The garage itself wasn't finished, and was lacking a roof. It did however have the main beam running down the middle with rafters running from there to the side wall, and each of the walls was sheet rocked. It would be a fine fortress for the moment, and the momentary headquarters where there were a few maps lying about, some open and some not, a radio listening to an emergency broadcast station, and several tables and chairs as well as some hastily constructed beds made of two by fours and plywood.

The house, which was about twenty feet away, was raised off the ground on six large supports that you couldn't see from the outside, as a deck ran all the way around the house except for where a bay window of sorts jutted out. It was an odd house, partially for being off the ground so, and partially because it was in the shape of a hexagon.

Work continued well into the night, the biggest project being the digging of a nine foot deep and four foot wide trench around the buildings except for where the driveway was dug with an excavator one person had had on their property. The dirt that they dug up was used for an earthen berm on the other side.

* * *

Derik's Grandparent's House - 5:09 P.M.

The house was quiet for the most part as the clouds outside began to dissipate. Inside the front door had a large couch pushed against it, and on the outside it was boarded up fairly well. The second door, the one to that lead out to the porch from a living room next to the kitchen, also had a couch pushed up next to it, and several boards were nailed across either side.

The three of them, Ernie, Derik, and Breanne, had been Laying low in the house for a little over two hours now, occasionally eating something from the pantry. So far the power was still going, and they had started watching television a little while ago in the main living room. At about this time, though, Derik suddenly got a mental wake-up call as he remembered that they hadn't searched the rest of the house for weapons or even gone out to the garage yet.

"Oh crap," he said out loud.

"What?" asked Ernie as he looked over.

"We haven't searched the rest of the house yet or even gone over to check out the garage," Derik said, still sitting in the chair.

"Well, we should probably do that then, shouldn't we?" asked Ernie, standing up and stretching.

"Yea, guess so. You gonna stay here Breanne?" asked Derik, getting up and looking for his .38 special.

"Sure, I guess," she said, lying on the couch.

"Sounds good, then. Come on Ernie," said Derik, beckoning for Ernie as he walked out of the room towards the door by the computer.

"Why are we going back here?" asked Ernie, who was now carrying his Glock 22.

"Because there's a third door out of here back here, and it's closer to the garage."

"Ohhhhhh..."

"Yea, now come on."

The two of them had just entered the door behind the computer and were now in an L shaped room that was completely white and had two windows. In one corner was a large white chest freezer and along one wall was a bunch of shelving with random crap piled on it. Power tools were lying about in various places as well. At the other end of this room was an archway that lead into a tiny square entryway that had another archway opening into another living room and a thick grey door.

Unlocking the door Derik opened it and said, "Come on, you first."

"Alright," said Ernie, hopping down the two and a half foot drop to the ground, with Derik coming down after him.

In front of them was another motor home, this one showing slight fire damage. To their left was the river and the lawn and to their right was the driveway, some trees, and a path to the garage.

"Thataway!" said Derik with his .38 raised as he walked along the path through some tall pines. They emerged to find the chassis of a car lying under some trees, an old Scout on one side of the driveway, and a white Jeep sat in front of the garage itself, which was a twenty feet tall building with metal siding that was painted red. It was about twenty five feet wide and forty five feet long. At the front of it was a single garage door big enough for nearly any motor home to fit itself through, and right next to that but small in comparison was a side entrance. Piles of random crap were laid up against the side of the garage.

Derik walked up and unlocked the door, and opened it, walking inside.

The room they walked into was huge, easily three quarters of the garage. The floor was concrete with two large oil stains and more random crap was piled against the walls. There were shelves along the top of the wall that could only be reached by ladder and those were filled with various car parts. At the back of the garage was a double door leading into a shop and to the right of that was the frame of a car that had a plastic sheet draped over it. To the left was a ladder leading to a storage area above the workshop and another tooling machine next to the ladder.

"Let's check the work shop first," said Derik as he walked over towards the dark doors. Peering inside the dark shop Derik looked around, but stepped back blinking as Ernie turned on the light with four switches that had been above Derik's head.

The machine shop was filled with tons of tools, machines, boxes, papers, and the occasional pile of junk. A quick once over revealed the stock of a gun sticking out from behind a cabinet on the right of the room.

"Go get that and I'll start to gather all the ammo, said Derik as he motioned towards the shotgun.

"Right," replied Ernie as he made his way towards the gun stock.

Derik headed in the other direction, left, towards the far back left corner of the shop, where he found a huge pile of ammunition boxes on the side of a counter. They was mostly .270 Winchester and .308 Winchester, as well as a box on the floor full of loose ammunition that was next to a plastic bag with some boxes marked .380 auto.

As Ernie came back with the shotgun over his shoulder Derrick was busy stuffing the boxes of ammunition into the cardboard box and into any plastic bags he could find. As he did this he also found a black strap that turned out to be attached to a holder for shotgun shells, which was filled with about ten twelve-gauge three and a half inch magnum rounds.

"Here, take this," Derik said as he handed the shotgun shell holder to Ernie, who started to try and attach it around his waist.

Derik then started to loop the plastic bags around his arm and picked up the box, motioning with his head for Ernie to take the lead back towards the door.

Back through the garage and out the door they went, making it back to the house without incident.

"Hey, Breanne, get over here!" yelled Derik as he set all the ammunition on the kitchen table.

"Yea?" she asked as she walked in from the living room.

"I need you to count all this crap while Ernie and I head back out and try to secure this place a bit more."

"Alright, I guess."

"Good, then, if you need anything just holler or yell or throw something at us, whatever you prefer."

"Sounds good."

* * *

Cushman Street Bridge - 6:00 P.M.

There were forty of them on the bridge, twenty on each side maintaining the rows of cars and makeshift barricades. Tables and even a flatbed trailer were spread out in between, covered with various firearms, firearms parts and accessories, ammunition, food, and medical supplies. On the other sides of the barricades that were on the downtown side of the bridge was about seven hundred of the living dead, and on the side opposite downtown there currently weren't any of the living dead but their moans could be heard in the distance along with an increasingly dwindling number of gunshots.

There was, however, a steady flow of people was coming from the nearby gun shop 'Down Under Guns' where they were almost done emptying the shop of weapons and ammunition.

Currently no one was firing at any of the undead on the downtown side except for the few police officers that had managed to hole up on the bridge with the civilians. Two officers were standing about five feet away and were firing controlled, accurate rounds into the mob, dropping one of the undead nearly every time.

Two more had bolt-action rifles set up on the flatbed trailer and were also firing controlled, accurate rounds into the hoard and occasionally scoring the occasional two kills with one shot.

The one remaining officer was standing with the two officers firing handguns and was using his AR-15 to great effect.

And then several people screamed and the rather rhythmical shots from the police officers were interrupted as they turned to see what was happening.

Unfolding before them was a chaotic scene of people rushing for the barricades and more grabbing for guns as a four legged monstrosity tore at the occupants of a jeep that had just arrived. The things body was covered with rough, lumpy skin and the legs were fat and misshapen. The head was elongated, almost like a horse's, and the mouth was pointed and filled with rows of sharp teeth. And the eyes, oh, the eyes were two inches across and a disgusting shade of dark purple.

Scrambling the two handgun bearing officers ran forward and began firing at the creature while the AR-15 wielding officer fired rounds over people's heads from the flatbed trailer.

Meanwhile, the two officers who had been using rifles were now bringing to bear a huge black bolt-action rifle that didn't even have a scope on it, and one of them was rushing to extract a .50 BMG round from a box while the other was piling up sandbags to rest it on.

Now the thing had turned its attention to the people on the bridge and was rushing towards and then climbing over the cars in order to get at them. The various pistols and rifles and shotguns were doing little to slow it down even though it was now bleeding profusely from many holes in its sides.

And then the many various sounds from all the firearms were drowned out as the fifty caliber rifle fired, making several people wince and quite a few blink.

Everything was now quiet, and the monstrosity lay dead, a gaping hole in its chest.

* * *

Nome, Alaska - 8:02 P.M.

It was just now beginning to get dark, but several people were still outside in the streets, talking idly.

Their conversations, though, were interrupted by the sounds of planes flying overhead, and when they looked they could see about twenty cargo planes flying from the general area of Russia. About five hours later their sleep was interrupted as several ships flying Russian flags sailed by down the Bering Strait. There were several Sovremenny class Guided Missile Destroyers, two Zubr Pomornik class Amphibious landing craft, four Ropucha class Tank Landing ships, two Kirov class Guided Missile Cruisers, and a Kreml class Aircraft Carrier.

* * *

Derik's Grandparent's House - 8:09 P.M.

It was now dead quiet. Derik and Ernie had stopped working only minutes earlier, deciding that their work was good for now.

They had worked for some time now on barricading the area, and had done pretty damn well. First off the thick woods along the driveway parallel to the house had been sealed with some wire fence that had been lying around. After intertwining it through trees and bushes, and then stapling, nailing, and tying it in with all sorts of various materials they were satisfied that it would work for keeping small amounts of the undead out if they came through the trees. Then the two of them cannibalized the neighbor's unfinished home for lumber which they used to erect a wall along the far side of the property right next to the garage which led all the way to where the forest started. The wall was, admittedly, only five feet tall, but they had built it in a way so that it would take a great many undead to topple it.

For the driveway entrance the two had simply parked the motor home in front of it and called that good. Then the woods along the house side of the property got the same wire fence treatment as well as some fortification with various bits of lumber.

Now, though, they were done for the day and were busy fixing themselves food to eat. Derik had found some pizzas in the chest freezer so they decided to cook those while there was still electricity.

On the kitchen table there was ammunition piled up according to caliber. According to Breanne there were about seven-hundred rounds of .380 auto, five-hundred rounds of .270 Winchester, and six-hundred rounds of .308 Winchester. Alongside that there was two-thousand rounds of .22 long rifle, two-hundred rounds of .38 Special, and fifty three and a half inch magnum rounds. Of course, only one caliber actually had a weapon to go with it.

"Now _that_ was some hard shit we did today," said Ernie.

"Damn straight it was. I'm gonna feel that tomorrow," replied Derik. "Hey, Breanne, get your ass in here and cook them pizzas!"

Breanne came into the room and said, "You better be kidding or I might just slap you."

"Err... Yes ma'am, I am just kidding and I am about to go and cook those pizzas. Yessiree," Derik said laughing as he got up and started to unpackage the pizzas.

"So, man, where exactly are the rest of the guns you were talkin' about?" Ernie asked Derik.

"Weeeell, I figure we're just gonna have to get off our asses and look for them," Derik replied.

"Damn."

Outside the sky was just beginning to get dark as the Alaskan spring-yet-summer day started to draw to a close.

"Here, ok, the pizzas are in the oven. When the timer beeps can you take 'em out and let 'em cool for me?" asked Derik. "Cool, thanks."

"What- but, I didn't sa-" spluttered Breanne.

"Yea, well, I'm sorta busy lookin' for boom sticks here," said Derik cutting her off.

"Ugh," she said going back into the living room to watch some more T.V., mostly news reports about the hoards of living dead in Alaska.

"The military seems to have learned its lesson back during the New York outbreak in 2001 and are scrambling their forces as quickly as possible. It is reported right now that the entire city is pretty much completely overtaken, including most of the military base there, Fort Wainwright. As you can see from this aerial shot here the entirety of the downtown is pretty much overrun except for the small pocket on the bridge which is on its own for now. The only other main safe house appears to be in the military fort but that seems to be on its last legs.

"Also seen in this sweep of downtown is the fact that the virus or what ever this may be not only causes the dead to walk again in record time, but it also randomly causes hideous mutations in nearly everything. In this next shot we see Russian naval ships sailing down towards the city of Anchorage where they'll drop off nearly twenty thousand soldiers and vehicles to help us take back and cleanse Fairbanks."

It all seemed so surreal.

Mean while Derik and Ernie were busy searching the entirety of the house for other weapons. Right now they were searching the main living room across from the one Breanne was in. Derik was searching around the T.V. while Ernie looked through some cabinets near Derik's grandfather's chair.

"Hey, check this out," said Ernie as he held up a box. On it was a picture of a pistol and in the corner was something saying that it was a BB-gun.

"Well, it appears to be a BB gun, but go throw it on the table anyways," said Derik, turning back to start looking some more. He came upon an equally nice if not better find in the shape of a Walther P22 semi-automatic .22 rim fire pistol.

After several hours of looking the three of them had a final armament of: a Colt Python .357, a .270 Winchester bolt-action rifle, a .308 Winchester bolt-action rifle, the .38 revolver, the old 12-gauge, the two Glocks, a .380 automatic, several various bb-guns, and two semi-automatic .22s, one of them the P22 and the other an old Colt. That was all that they'd found anyways.

It was now nearly eleven at night, and they hadn't been bothered at all, AND the power still hadn't gone out.

Since they were getting tired the three of them decided it was time to go to sleep. Breanne was situated in the biggest bed in the biggest room upstairs just because she was Breanne and was a girl.

Ernie was going to sleep in a smaller room in a smaller bed.

Derik, however, grabbed several cans of Pepsi, some candy, a coat and one of his grandfather's hats, and a blanket because he would be elsewhere that night. Heading outside Derik pulled a ladder out from one of the sheds and set it up against the side of the house and began ferrying his things up to the roof, storing them in a nook where the three ridges on the house's roof met up next to the satellite dish. He then climbed back down and went into the kitchen and examined all the various weapons.

Staring blankly in his exhaustion he shook his head hard and then said aloud to himself, "Arg," and picked up the .308 because it had a sling and a scope, and scooped up two boxes of ammunition. After he had slung the rifle over his shoulder Derik took two boxes of .38 ammunition and then decided to head back up to the roof.

And that was where he expected to stay for the night, huddled under a blanket and a coat, occasionally drinking some soda or eating some candy and keeping an eye on things.

* * *

11:38 P.M. - 1428 Hans Way

People were asleep in various areas downstairs, sleeping together or apart depending on how they were related. Over forty people resided there now, bringing with them all sorts of things.

In the second story of the garage there were supplies and tables, and some furniture just lying about. Two people were there standing watch, and there was one other person on the porch keeping an eye on things.

Occasionally a shot would flash out in the night.

* * *

Derik's Grandparent's House - 11:54 P.M

There was a faint rustling and a large blot in the sky that got bigger and bigger and then...

With a crash and snapping of branches a soldier of some sort parachuted right into the middle of the property, getting caught on a tree.

As he swung from side to side from his parachute the man began to reach for a knife that was strapped to his thigh and at the same time swore in rapid Russian.

Derik kept the rifle trained on him while reaching for a round; he was weary of everything right now.

The man finally cut himself free and fell to the ground, only to yell out in pain as his ankle cracked.

Risking his cover Derik raised a hand and yelled, "Hey, buddy, you gonna shoot me if I come down there?"

The response was a rapid string of Russian words and then the Russian pulled a pistol out from a holster on his thigh and began to fire in rapid succession, missing with every shot.

There was silence for a moment as the Russian struggled to reload his firearm and Derik, now scared shitless, peeked back over the edge of the roof, aimed the rifle, slowly pulled back on the trigger, and fired.

_Kerplow!_

The recoil hit Derik hard in the shoulder, and the Russian yelled out in pain again.

Derik could now see that he had dropped his gun and was clutching his shoulder.

Loading another round into the bolt-action rifle Derik aimed and fired again, and the soldier lay still.

Somewhere in the house below a clock rang midnight.

* * *

Dundundun!

Well, there's roughly 13,036 words for you to eat. I estimate another two months before there is any more.

Any constructive criticism would be nice as always, or just what you thought of the chapter. I think this will be the format that I'm gonna use for the rest of the story.

Well, good day to you all, since I've got to get going or my mom will hurt me.

-Bert


	3. Day 3: Part One

Derik's Grandparent's House – 12:07 A.M.

Derik stood over the Russian who was lying on the ground, his fatigue pants soaked with blood. The dead soldier's ankle was twisted at a very odd angle. A few feet away the Russian's huge combat knife lay in the grass and next to the Russian was his pistol, which was a funny looking pistol that had a monster integrated silencer, which explained why Derik hadn't heard any of the shots and had only seen the bits of roof fly up around him.

The Russian himself was a guy who had a medium build and looked fairly young. He was deathly still and there was a small amount of foam around his mouth.

Next to Derik was Ernie. He had the Glock hanging loosely in one hand with the safety on. "You know what?" he said slowly, "I don't think you shot him twice. Look at the tree right there, it got hit pretty badly by _something_, and I've heard that some special forces groups will kill themselves if it looks like they might be captured. That would explain the foam around his mouth."

"Yea, but bottom line is, I killed him. And I'm really hoping I'm suppressing the feelings, or else I've got some serious issues to deal with," countered Derik. "Oh well, he's dead, just like a lot of people are now. Come on, you grab his knife and pistol while I take his vest off and take any equipment he has.

"Alright man, I'll see you inside, then," replied Ernie grabbing the knife and pistol. "Wait," he said, stopping for a moment, "Are you sure you don't want the knife to help get that parachute off?" he asked, offering Derik the knife.

"Oh..." Derik said blankly, "Yea, thanks, man. I'm so out of it."

"Here," said Ernie handing him the knife. "You know, I'm pretty rested, I got some sleep earlier and all that. I could take the rest of your watch for you."

"You... You know what man?" Derik answered sounding thoroughly relieved, "Right now I love you as much as I possibly can in a totally non-gay way. The rifle is still up there, but I haven't put another round in since the – since the last two. If you wanna just leave the pistol with me too I'll bring 'em all with me when I go in."

"Sounds good man," said Ernie as he set the pistol on the ground, "I'll be getting up there now, then. You should go and get some sleep, ok?"

"Alright, man, alright."

As Ernie walked off Derik continued to work at the Russian's vest. It didn't take long, though, before he got frustrated and just used the knife to cut the vest off the dead man. Once he'd done that he removed the Russian's main weapon from where it was packed on his back and then took it all and headed inside. It was fairly dark out now and the apartment seemed fairly spooky as he walked through it.

Things were a bit better, though, when Derik reached the main living room which was warm because of the oil stove running in the one corner. After dumping all of the equipment on the kitchen table Derik then headed back toward the living room and sat down in the green chair next to the oil stove and pulled two blankets off the back of the chair. Then he pulled the lever on the side of the chair which situated him with some nice leg support, and after leaning the back of the chair back and getting comfortable Derik was asleep in barely a minute.

Outside Ernie was sitting on top of the roof, alone in the relative darkness of the outside. As the night wore on his mind wandered from thing to thing, but kept wondering if his family was alright.

* * *

Near Downtown Fairbanks – 12:17 A.M.

The two cops cruised down the road along the river across from the power plant. They had been tied up at the airport for a while as they helped defend the air traffic control tower for a little longer in order to warn away any approaching aircraft.

After that they had slowly made their way slowly towards downtown, trying to find any survivors.

Now, though, they had come across a boatload of them holed up on the Cushman Street Bridge. They all appeared to be well armed as they had raided the nearby gun store. Each side of the bridge was barricaded off with tons of heavy-duty vehicles and concrete barriers. The far side of the bridge, the downtown side, was crawling with tons of the undead who were milling around the barriers, in the streets, and near the water.

The side of the bridge that Officer Drew and Officer Haydukavich were one was also swarming with the undead, about fifty of them. The two officers stopped their car before they attracted these fifty-so undead to them. Upon observing the situation Officer Drew noticed that there was a squad car on the bridge so he tried to reach them with the car's radio. He watched as one of the officers on the bridge looked around from where he was talking to another officer and reached for the radio.

"This is Officer Ryan here. May I ask who I'm talking to?" came his response over the radio.

"This is Officer Drew and Officer Haydukavich. We're over here on the side of the bridge with only about fifty of the undead and it looks like you could use some help. So, what d'you say Ryan, you bum?" answered Officer Drew.

"Haha! Drew you ol' sonuvabitch! I thought help would never get here! So, you have a plan on how to get us out of here?" asked Officer Ryan.

"Yea. A few blocks from here there's two abandoned school buses that look like they'll run. I say we take out those freaks on this side of the bridge and then we'll help you get your civilians outta there. We know of a place near the airport where they can stay until the cavalry arrives. Then you and me and the rest of your boys and anyone who wants to stay can figure out a battle plan."

"Sounds good. Give me a second, I'll relay the orders to my guys, we'll have those bastards dead soon and then we can get these people out of here."

"Good, Haydukavich and I will go check out those buses while you guys take care of those fuckers. Drew out." Officer Drew paused a moment before turning around and backing the car up so they could take a look at the school buses. "You take the one closer to the gun store and I'll take the one by the News Miner offices. Sound good, man?"

"Yea, sounds good, man," replied Haydukavich as he gripped his black pump-action.

"Alright, let's go," said Drew as he opened his door and pulled his coach gun from the back seat. He took a few cautious steps towards the bus, listening to see if he could hear anything inside, and then stepped inside and pointed his gun right down the main aisle. It was all clear.

As he looked around Drew found the keys to the bus on the floor under some seats and picked them up and put them in the ignition, just to make sure they were the right ones.

Then he went back to the squad car, arriving at the same time as Haydukavich.

"Mine was all clear and I've got the keys in the ignition," said Drew. "How about you?"

"Well, the driver was there, dead. His head's missing and it's a mess, but the keys are there and it's empty otherwise."

"Alright. I think I hear the shooting over there slowing down. Let's head back."

With that Drew eased the patrol car back up the road towards the turn that led to the bridge. When they went around it they could see that all the undead were now redead and they could also see the beast that had been killed by the fifty-caliber rifle.

"Damn..." said Drew under his breath.

"Yea," agreed Haydukavich.

As they neared the bridge two lean looking officers came out to greet them with AR-15s cradled in their arms.

"Where'd you say the buses were?" asked one of them as Drew rolled down his window.

"Over there in between the gun shop and the News Miner offices," replied Drew, jerking his thumb in that direction.

Without another word the two officers began to jog over there. Meanwhile the people on the bridge were busy gathering ammunition and supplies.

Then Drew and Haydukavich watched as Ryan climbed over the barriers and walked up to the squad car and asked, "So where's this safe place you were talking about?"

"Alright, so tell your guys that they need to go all the way down past the post-office by the airport and down Mail Trail, and there's a driveway right there at the end across from that junkyard. Go all the way down and to the right and they should be there."

"Ok, I'll be right back," said Ryan.

It took about fifteen more minutes to get everyone who was going into the buses with their weapons and supplies and the officers were busy killing any undead that happened to intrude upon their operations.

After that fifteen minutes, though, Drew and Haydukavich watched as the two buses left full of people and supplies. The people looked down through the windows with tired eyes and faces, but they looked relieved at being told that they were going somewhere safe.

"Now that they're gone," said Ryan suddenly, surprising Drew and Haydukavich, "we can figure out our battle plan."

* * *

At the Nearby Power Plant – 1:07 A.M.

Eric Downes was the plant manager for one of Fairbanks' coal power plants, and right now he was organizing the ten other people there at the moment in the defense of the power plant.

There were only three entrances to the building that they needed to barricade. The first was the main entrance that was a normal door near the plant's offices that was deep seated and only needed to be looked with the padlock that was built in. The second was a fire escape and all that needed to be done for that was to pull up the ladder.

The third was actually a door and a cargo door. The door was easy just like the others because it was an outward opening door and only needed to be locked. The cargo door, though, was a problem because under great pressures it would definitely buckle easily and would then provide an easy way for the undead to pour through.

That problem was temporarily solved by pushing some large crates in front of it and then parking the forklift in front of those.

Another thing that worried Eric was the conveyor belt that crossed the river and brought the coal over. It angled out of the ground shallowly enough that anything or anybody agile enough could climb up it if they could just get past the chain-link fence that surrounded it.

That brought him to another thing – while the plant had gotten a shipment of coal quite recently and had their oil turbine for the very end their fuel would only last them for the better part of the next week, and after that they were out and wouldn't be able to make any more power.

He would worry about that later, though, if he lived that long.

Eric's thoughts were interrupted when another worker came up to him and said, "Hey, boss. The new guy is definitely showing the signs. What should we do with him?"

Eric turned towards the worker and thought for a very long moment before he replied: "You have a big wrench and some rope, don't you? Be creative."

* * *

1428 Hans Way – 2:05 A.M.

Jason stood up in the garage with his AR-15 cradled in his arms. He looked down at his watch and sighed; it was only two in the morning, and that meant that he had four hours to go until he switched watch with one of the people that were currently sleeping.

Down on the porch around the house Jason could see two more guys standing watch, each of them with a long-gun either resting on the railing or cradled in their arms like him.

As he gazed back out towards the driveway where he was keeping watch something caught Jason's eye. He had almost missed it, the dull, red glow in between a few trees and bushes. He gazed at it for a few moments, not sure whether or not it was really there.

As he stood there looking at the eyes, because that's what they looked like, his concentration was interrupted by a tiny crackling noise that came from one corner of the garage. Turning around he listened closely, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

After a moment Jason stepped forwards slowly through the dark towards the noise, and as is eyes adjust to the darker interior of the garage Jason could see that the noise was coming from a neighbors hand held radio that was lying on one of the tables.

Jason walked forwards a bit more and picked up the radio and listened closer. After a moment the white noise began to take the form of words being repeated over and over by a person, sounded like a young woman.

"...I repeat, this is search and rescue helicopter 12. If you are out there and can hear me then please give me a signal of some sort. I repeat, this is search and rescue helicopter 12. If you are out there and can hear me then please give me a signal of some sort. I repeat, this..."

Jason had already turned around and sprinted over to one of the tables that had the group equipment on them and had started looking for a flare gun. He knew that there was one there somewhere; he had seen one of the other people bring in. After moving aside an over-under shotgun he found it and grabbed the small pistol-like gun with an over large barrel.

After making sure that it was loaded Jason pointed it up-wards in between two of the rafters and pulled the trigger and up went the flare, bright red in the black night.

It sizzled as it flew slowly upwards towards the sky and illuminated the surrounding landscape, even penetrating into the forest slightly.

It wasn't long before Jason could hear the sweet, sweet sound of a helicopter coming closer and closer, and within a minute they could see it right there, hovering above them and swinging a searchlight back and forth across the house and garage.

Grabbing the radio Jason listed as the pilot said, "We are sending down two specialists who can bring up any children and elderly, we have room for two more."

Looking up again Jason could see two people lowering themselves slowly from the helicopter towards the walkway.

Jason hurried over to the ladder down to the walkway and nearly threw himself down it, stopping at the bottom and turning in time to see the two specialists touch the floor of the walkway.

"Ok, who's leaving today?" asked one of them, his voice slightly gravelly.

"One second, I'll go find them," said Jason as he rushed by. Where had he seen those two sick kids? Oh yea, other side of the porch!

Jogging over there Jason stopped by their smaller shapes and put his hands out to help them up, since they had already been woken by the helicopter. "Come on," he whispered to the two young boys, "You're leaving!"

He then helped the two tired children back to the specialists, and one of them immediately grabbed one of them and began upwards toward the helicopter with a winch.

The other specialist turned to Jason and said, "Only one of use can go up at a time when we have people with us. It should only take a second."

Turning around Jason could see that quite a large crowd had gathered by now, watching from the porch behind him. They could all see that one child waiting to be brought up and the other one being helped inside, and since no one said anything Jason assumed none of them had a problem with it.

Just as the second specialist was about to clip himself to the now lowered winch, though, his radio squawked, "Missile lock on! Missile lock on!"

Jason looked up and watched as the helicopter suddenly swung upwards and backwards and deployed little burning flares, narrowly avoiding the missile that sped after one of the small burning objects.

"Shit!" swore the second specialist next to Jason. He had been a moment away from being clipped on to the helicopter, and if he had been he would have been swung into the forest.

"Rescue P21, I'm afraid this zone is too dangerous, we are leaving the vicinity now, you'll have to just hold out for the mo-".

The transmission was cut off as an explosion rocked the air around everyone standing there, and Jason could see the side of the garage illuminated as what he could only assume to be a second missile hit the helicopter.

"Jesus Christ!" swore the second specialist again. "No!"

Jason had made his way to the other side of the porch by now and could see the crash sight clearly further up on the hill, glowing slightly.

Yes, they were dead alright, the child they'd just sent up there, the other survivors, all of them were likely dead.

Russian Command Submarine – 2:53 A.M.

* * *

The Russian commander thought for a moment about what to do now that their men had landed in the infected city.

"Sir, spetsnaz operations leader reports that they have now come together into five groups and are ready for orders," said one of the men working at a nearby console.

This submarine was different from many Russian naval vessels or other Russian aircraft because instead of replacing the electronics with people this submarine had the latest in communications equipment and navigation equipment.

It was the U.S.S.R. гордость земли мати, the newest addition to the Russian fleet. It had been kept secret until now, and was one of the most advance submarines in the world at the time.

"Tell him to converge on the military base. We need to capture and search it for any intelligence that could help us in our assault on the American anti-missile system. Make sure they don't do anything _stupid_," he said as he examined a screen that was displaying a satellite photo of Fairbanks with the Spetsnaz's current locations marked in red.

"Yes, acknowledged, sir," the grunt said.

A few moments passed as the Russian men working at the consoles conversed with the other Russian ships, directing them to landing areas and giving them co-ordinates to wait at.

The relative quiet of this was broken, though, when one of the grunts said something that sounded perfectly routine but then things changed when he thought for a moment before turning and saying in Russian, "Admiral, there is an American commander on the secure frequency. He wishes to know why we've shot down one of their helicopters."

The Admiral turned to face the grunt who had spoken up and looked ready to kill, his aging Russian face contorted with anger. "_What?!"_ he yelled angrily. "Tell the American to wait a moment – and get me the operations leader on the satellite phone, now!"

Everyone cringed at this outburst, and the grunt who had spoken turned back to his console and began turning some dials and pressing some buttons, working to get the OL on the line.

A few moments later he had succeeded, and the Russian Admiral went into his briefing room and began conversing with the Spetsnaz operative in his briefing room, away from probing ears.

"That's right," he yelled into the phone once inside the soundproof room. "The American's claim that one of your units shot down one of their helicopters!"

He listened to the man on the other line for a moment before saying coldly, "It doesn't matter. You know the price for a mistake like that. Activate the beacon."

A few moments more... "Yes, I know that I'm ordering the death of a fourth of your forces. You should have thought about that earlier."

With this the Admiral put down his phone and exited the briefing room and simply told the grunt who had the American admiral on the: "Tell him that my men are being punished accordingly."

Derik's grandparent's house – 3:47 A.M.

* * *

Derik woke up slowly, trying to remember where he was. '_Oh yea..._' he thought groggily, '_I'd better get up._'

He slowly felt the side of the chair, trying to find the lever that would lower the leg-rest. Once he found it he slowly pulled it back so that his feet were eventually touching the floor, again.

Moving the blankets aside Derik stood up and stretched, and then yawned really loudly.

He then stood there for a moment, trying to decide what to do. After a minute he turned and headed into the kitchen.

Apparently the power was still on since the kitchen lights were on. Derik moved to the refrigerator and opened it and pulled out the carton of orange juice that was in there, un-opened.

He set it on the kitchen counter and moved over to the cabinets by the sink to get a glass.

Outside he could see that it was already fairly light out. '_That's Alaska for you,_' he thought to himself.

After he had poured the juice Derik took the glass with him as he walked back into the living room, grabbing his revolver before heading into the apartment and from there, outside.

It was cool outside, but it felt nice and refreshing to Derik who turned left and started towards the ladder that went up to the roof.

Once he got to it Derik started to climb the ladder with his orange juice still in hand, and once he reached the top of the ladder he said, "Hey, Ern, ma man. How you holding up?"

Ernie, who had been half asleep, jerked up and looked around and then said, "Oh, it's just you. Uh, I'm holding out alright. Nothing much has been happening. I heard a few undead pukes shamble by, moaning, a while ago. But other than that, nothing."

"Alrighty, then. I think I'm gonna go back in the house and sleep some more. See you in a few."

And with that Derik started back down the ladder, glass in hand.

He walked down along the side of the house to the corner and turned and went back into the apartment. Once inside he headed back into the main house, stopping by the stairs. Derik stood for a moment and then headed up the stairs, turning at the top to head down the hallway towards Breanne's room.

He stopped in front of the room's door and listened for a moment before pushing the door open and peering inside.

The room was dark like Derik had always remembered it because of the thick curtains that hung over the windows. The room was about eighteen feet by twelve feet with a large kind-sized bed against one wall. Inbetween the bed and the far wall were some boxes of various items, crap mostly, that Derik's grandmother still needed to sort through. On the other side of the bed was a nightstand with a lamp that was on, illuminating the room with a soft light, and next to that was a desk with more crap on it.

Across from the bed were three different dressers and a small table with different pictures, dolls, and stuffed animals on top of them – they brought to Derik's mind memories of when he would come and spend the night when he was little. On the bed itself lay Breanne, looking like she was asleep.

Derik stood there for a moment more to make sure that she was really asleep before he turned to leave, but before he could close the door Breanne turned over and looked at him with tired eyes.

"Couldn't sleep, huh?" Derik said after a moment.

"No," she replied. "I'm worried about my mom, my dad, my brother. I don't even know if they're alive or if my friends are alive, even."

Derik couldl hear the stress in her voice. "Yea, I've been thinking the same things. About my little brother, mostly, but still. It really sucks – I wish I knew if they were all right."

"How come you seem so alright, then?" Breanne asked, sounding almost envious. "You've seemed to have been taking things so calmly."

"Well," Derik began, buying time to think of what to say. "I guess I've just been shutting it out for the most part. And what I haven't been shutting out I've just kinda pushed down. I figure now's not the time or the place for worrying. I've got to keep you and Zane safe, and anyone else who comes along and decides to stay with us."

Breanne didn't say anything, she just seemed to be thinking this over for a moment.

"Why don't you come downstairs with me and I'll make you some really early breakfast," Derik offered her. "Sound good?"

She nodded and said a quiet 'yea' and stood up to come with him. Derik let her go ahead of him and turned off the lamp before following her downstairs into the kitchen.

Once there Derik said, "You want some eggs?"

Breanne nodded and said something about scrambled before going back into the living room to sit by the oil stove.

Before Derik set to work cooking the eggs, though, he walked through the other living room and out onto the porch and walked over to the ladder and climbed it all the way to the top and said, "Hey, Ernie, I'm making some eggs. You want some?"

"Uhh... sure, I guess," Ernie said as he turned around.

"How you want 'em cooked?" Derik asked him.

"I want them cooked so that... so that... what's it called when they're cooked so that the yolk is still intact and all liquidy?"

"That would be sunny-side up," Derik said. "Your culinary knowledge never ceases to amaze me."

"Oh, shut up."

Derik started back down the ladder and then headed back onto the porch, but before he could get inside the door he heard heard a loud rumbling noise that sounded far off, but as he listened he could hear it slowly get louder and louder until it sounded like it was right behind the motor home in the driveway.

"Hey, Ernie!" Derik yelled as loud as he could. "What's in the driveway?"

Derik listened hard and was surprised to hear Ernie yell back, "It's a frigging school bus, man!"

Derik immediately ran to the motor home upon hearing this, opening the door and rushing inside. And lo and behold there was a school bus there, with an old man driving it and what looked like many other people and supplies inside. He could also see that the old man could see him, so Derik motioned for him to send someone out to talk and opened the window that was next to the small dining area.

He watched as a younger guy – probably in his twenties – got out of the bus and walked up to the open window.

"Hey," Derik said to the guy, noticing that he was still carrying the orange juice. "Want some juice?"

"Oh, god, yea," the guy said, taking the glass and downing all of it in one go. "So, let's get down to things. We ran into two cops downtown who said that we could find refuge here?" The end of the sentence was toned as a question, pretty much asking if they could come in.

"Yea, I remember them. Just give me a second to move this thing," Derik said as he turned to turn on the two batteries. Once he'd done this he pressed a button on the keys that turned off the alarm and then started the motor home.

After a moment he shifted it into reverse and backed the motor home up slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, all the way back up to in front of the garage.

As he turned the engine off he could hear the bus' engine revving up, and he watched as it slowly pulled forwards and turned into the parking area, stopping just short of the house itself. After about thirty seconds Derik started the motor home back up and eased it forwards back to where it had been before the bus had come.

Once he had turned the motor off Derik got out of the driver's seat and then out of the motor home, tons of thoughts swirling through his head. Where would he put all of these people? Was he willing to let them stay in his grandparent's house? How much food had they brought? Could he feed them all?

His thoughts were interrupted, though, when the old man who had been driving the bus started over towards Derik, limping slightly.

"Hey," the old man said once he was closer. He sounded worn out, tired. "You all that's here?"

"No..." Derik said, pausing for a moment. "No, if you look up there you can see Ernie," he said motioning to Ernie who was observing everyone he could see with a detached look on his face. "And inside is Breanne. And I'm Derik, and you would be...?" he asked while offering a hand to shake.

"Oh, I'm Erin McDonagh. A pleasure to meet you, I guess," he said, taking Derik's hand. "Now, down to business, Derik. I have about thirty people with me, mostly women and children, as well as quite a few weapons and supplies. I need a place for them to sleep and stay safe, and I need a vehicle."

"Alright, I know where they can... Wait, why do you need a vehicle?" Derik asked, confused.

"There was another bus with us when we started on our way over here over two hours ago. The roads are filled with vehicle wrecks and those things. About three quarters of the way here we drove by another bus – a tour bus – that was surrounded by those things, and we could see that there were people inside, alive. Well, you know, more alive than the things outside. So, the guys on the other bus called me over the bus radio and said that they were gonna go and help those poor chaps. And told them to go ahead, they had guns and they were mostly guys, so I figured that they would be alright. I told them that we would continue on ahead and that they should catch up with us later after they were done. I just wanna take a car and head back out to make sure they're alright."

Derik hesitated only for a moment before saying, "Sure, just come with me," and leading Erin towards the garage. "There's three cars – one's an old eagle, it runs well and should get you where you want to go, and the other good choice is the jeep back here. It runs well, is slightly more powerful and bigger, and'll get the job done just as well. The old Mercedes up front I'm not sure about, I don't think it has any gas in it and I haven't actually ever seen it run."

"I'll take the jeep, then," was all Erin said.

"All right, then," Derik said. "Keys are on the seat. I'll go move the motor home for you while you start the jeep up."

Derik then turned around and headed back towards the motorhome. He watched the people unloading things from the bus for a moment before stepping back in the motor home and sitting down in the driver's seat. Hopefully this would be the last time he would have to start it for a while.

The engine rumbled to life and Derik eased the motor home backwards, giving Erin just enough room to squeeze by and head down the driveway.

A minute later Derik was stepping back out of the motor home, pausing to close the door behind him. From there he went and found the guy who he had given his orange juice to earlier and helped him carry a crate off of the bus.

"Hey, let's get everything off the bus and into a pile so that we can move the bus back by the garage. After that I'll show you guys where to put everything," Derik said to him while he helped carry the crate over to the growing pile.

"Alright, that sounds good to me, but can you help me with him?" the young guy asked motioning to the dead Russian with his head.

"Oh, yea. Guess I forgot about him. Alright, let's get this over to the pile and then I'll help you move him," Derik replied.

After they set down the crate Derik moved over to the body and picked it up by the shoulders. "You want to grab the feet?"

"Sure," the other guy replied.

Together they heaved the Russian towards the porch, dumping him near one of the sheds.

"So, what's the story behind him?" asked the guy.

"I was up on the roof on watch and he just fell out of the sky. When he saw that I was there he started shooting, so I shot back," Derik explained.

"Ah," was all the guy said. "By the way, my name's Sean."

"Nice to meet you, Sean," Derik said, "I'm Derik."

As Sean started to walk back to the bus to help unload Derik went the other way and headed to the ladder, climbing up to the roof.

"So, what's the deal?" Ernie asked even before Derik's head was above the bottom of the roof.

"They ran into those cops from before and got directions here, apparently. They have supplies, though, and guns, which is good. But still, that's a lot of people to have to care for."

"Yea... well, I'm just gonna stay up here on watch for now."

"Sounds good, man, sounds good," Derik said as he started back down the ladder.

Once he reached the bottom of the ladder Derik took his sweet time in walking back towards the front of the house – he didn't feel much like doing a lot of work.

As he walked towards the bus Sean walked over and said, "Hey, we've got all the stuff out. If you wanna show everyone where to bring it I'll move the bus back towards the garage over there."

"Alright, thanks, man," Derik said before heading to the pile where about thirty people were waiting. Grabbing a big box of what looked like canned food Derik said, "Hey, if you all will just follow me I'll show you where to bring all of this stuff." He then turned around and started walking towards the apartment, looking back once to make sure that they were following him.

It was going to be a long day, he could tell.

Mile 49 of the highway to Fairbanks from Anchorage – 5:05 A.M.

* * *

The American cargo trucks roared down the highway carrying soldiers and their weapons towards the disaster area. Interspersed between these trucks was the occasional Humvee with a fifty-caliber machine gun mounted on top, and at the front of the column were two Bradleys.

Behind the twenty vehicle long American convoy was the Russian one which was more than twice as long at nearly fifty vehicles, mostly transport trucks, but there was also a brand-new T-90 leading the front of the column as well as five BTR-90s in the middle.

Together the task force numbered at nearly a thousand well armed men.

As the two convoys sped down the highway they roar of their engines would occasionally be interrupted as either Russian or American jets flew by overhead.

This ground-based strike force was quickly overtaken by a different one that was made up of fourteen different helicopters. The two biggest were the Russian Mi-26s, each of them carrying a hundred well-armed Russian soldiers.

Then there were the eight American helicopters, Blackhawks, each of them carrying ten soldiers and armed with two mini-guns with which to provide air support.

Then there were four attack helicopters, two of the American Super Cobras and the other two Russian Mi-28 Havoks.

Their destinations were the same. They would meet up with the forces that were blockading the highway and then start pushing forwards into the city.

* * *

**_Ok, I'm just gonna do the days in multiple chapters from now on so that they're easier to read. I hope you guys are enjoying reading this! But, anyways..._**

**_Until next time,_**

**_Bert_**


	4. Day 3: Part Two

Derik's grandparent's house - 5:49 A.M.

Derik closed the wooden and glass door quietly, letting it click shut, and then turned to face the twelve women that were either standing or sitting in his grandmother's living room. All the loose weapons and equipment were now on the counter in this room, away from the grabbing hands of young children.

Also in there were two teenage boys, one fourteen and the other seventeen, and four teenage girls, one fourteen, two fifteen, and one eighteen.

The women varied in age, though most of them were in their thirties. Two, though, were in their forties, and one grey haired lady claimed to be seventy six.

"All right, here's the deal," Derik began quietly, then speaking up louder so that everybody could hear him. "While this is a time of crisis I would like to remind you that this is not your house, though it may come to be over time. As such I would like to lay out some rules: First of all, nobody is to take any of the trinkets that my grandparents have collected over the years and left in their house. All of the small items are to be brought upstairs and put in my grandma's office. This brings me to the second rule: No children are allowed upstairs unsupervised, and no body is allowed in my grandparent's bedroom. Theirs is the on with the red carpet and pink curtains with the TV.

"Now, though, that I'm done bitching and moaning about those things, I would like to explain everything else about this house. First of all, the makeshift barricades that my friend and I have set up are not extremely strong, and I would hate to see them tested in the first place. I would like some help in making them stronger in the coming days, but right now it is more important that we sort out supplies. Now, there is food here, but before you all came it was still only enough to get myself and my friends through a month at the most. Now, I know that you have brought supplies with you, and it seems that there was a lot, but we are probably going to need to ration anyways. Now, to achieve this end I suggest that all food is moved up to the second story part of the apartment with people taking turns guarding it.

"Second... Uh, ok, second. I have plenty of beds and blankets and such, but only enough for so many people. Now, I saw that you brought those sorts of things with you as well, so the only question, really, is where to put everybody. Now, I suggest that we get as many people as possible in the two upstairs bedrooms that I'm letting you all stay in, I think that we can fit about half the people up there. The rest will fit in living room, I think.

"And, last order of business... Weapons. Now, I'm going to say this now: I don't give a _damn_ what your policies and opinions on weapons are. All weapons not in use are to be kept in here on the counter. If there is not enough space for all the guns then put what don't fit on the floor in front of the television. I do _not_ want to see any guns within arms reach of children. I don't care if you're the parent and feel that they know how to use a gun and should get one - nobody outside of this room besides Zane and Breanne gets a gun. If you have a weapon gun in the house I want it in a holster or slung over a shoulder. If you don't have a sling or holster then keep it pointed at the ground and unloaded until you get outside. Now, I need someone to stay in here to keep an eye on the weapons and make sure that everyone that wants one knows how to use it. Do I have any volunteers?"

Everybody was quiet for a moment, soaking it all in. Then the old grey-haired lady spoke up and said, "I'll do it. I don't feel much like moving around, but I know how to use any gun. I'll stay in here and watch them."

"All right, that sounds good to me. Now, does anybody have any questions?" Derik asked the assembled people.

Immediately one of the teenage boys spoke up and said, "Yea. What if I don't want to take your bullshit you fuckin' dictator?"

Derik looked at the boy a moment, took in his Neanderthal forehead and stocky build and brown height, and then replied by saying, "Then leave. If you don't want to take it then head out there on your own. You can have a gun and some food, I don't care, but if you're going to cause trouble then leave, else I shoot you myself."

The boy was quiet.

Then one of the ladies, a thirty year old woman, asked, "How is this place still powered? I thought that the power was out in this part of town."

"Oh, yea... I'd forgotten about that," Derik said. "Yea, my grandpa set up a generator in the garage over there. He also has a bank of batteries that will keep things running for quite a while. However, I'm gonna have to say no television, as I - we - don't have unlimited amounts of fuel. But, yes, while you're here you get the luxury of electricity. Also, as long as we have electricity we have water, as my grandpa set up pump up in the river. Any other questions?"

"Yea..." piped up another lady. "What's the long-term plan?"

"Well, I don't have any specifics, really. I mean, of course the end result should be to get the hell out of here I don't know how we'll go about that yet, and I'm not going to figure that out until the guys that left in the jeep get back. If they don't get back within twenty-four hours then I'll call up a meeting. Anything else?"

Nobody said anything.

"Ok, then. If you could all go and help the younger kids out in setting things up, that would be nice. And, don't forget, if anyone has any questions just come to me, I'll be happy to answer them," he said as he opened the door and held it open for the people as they left.

After the last of them had left Breanne came in, and Derik closed the door behind them.

"So you know how to use a gun, ma'am?" he asked the old lady.

"Yes, I sure as hell do. I was raised here and I'm an NRA member - of course I know how to use firearms!" the old lady chuckled. "Now, honey, do you want to take a gun or not?"

"Oh, yea, I'm gonna be taking one in a moment here. First, though, what's your name?" Derik asked her.

"Oh. Well, I'm Heather. Now, are you going to introduce me to your girlfriend there?" she asked, grinning.

Derik ran a hand through his hair and chuckled, and then replied, "Heather, this is Breanne. Breanne, Heather. And, she is not my girlfriend." He leaned over and mock whispered to Heather, "I only wish she was."

This elicited a chuckle from the old woman.

Now that the talking was done with Derik turned and looked at the weapons laid out on the counter. While he did have his revolver Derik wanted a rifle for other occasions. After looking over the weapons he decided that the only good choice that his conscience would agree with was his grandpa's .270 rifle. Though it didn't have a scope it would work just fine - iron sights were more than adequate for most shooting.

Not only that, but the rifle already had a good sling attached to it. So he grabbed it, checked the chamber so as to be sure that it was empty, and then slung it over his back, barrel pointing towards the ceiling. Then he took the Russian's vest from the corner of the living room and then proceeded to take everything out of the various pouches and straps. Breanne and Heather talked this whole time.

By the time he had emptied everything Derik had built up a pretty good-sized pile of magazines for the Russian's weapons, as well as several hand grenades and some various other pieces of equipment.

Then he put the vest on, letting it hang from his shoulders. It fit surprisingly well and wasn't as bulky as Derik had expected it to be.

"Breanne, Heather?" he asked the two women, interrupting their conversation. "Could you guys tie the straps that I - ah... Cut?"

The two of them looked at Derik a moment and then said, "Sure, hold your arms out," and began tying the cut straps together. About thirty seconds later four good knots were holding the vest together, and Derik was able to put five boxes of ammunition for his rifle and two for his revolver in the various pouches, and he suspected that more could fit.

"Well, don't you look fancy!" exclaimed Breanne.

"Yea, yea. I know I do. I'm awesome like that. Now, Breanne, if you could... stay here and keep Heather company, I guess? I'm gonna go and see how Ernie's doing," Derik said.

He then opened the door, exited the room, and closed it behind him, the bells on the doorknob jingling slightly.

As Derik walked through the other living room he watched as some of the older women helped the children move the small knick-knacks upstairs and set up their sleeping areas. The children there did seem to be quite young, some of them being only five, while others were looking to be pre-teens.

Derik then strode through the apartment and watched as a harried looking woman with brown hair helped some more children move the food up into the second floor of the apartment. As he walked by her he smiled and nodded his approval, and she returned the smile.

Derik then opened the door and hopped onto the grass, and as he was closing the door behind him something touched him on the shoulder, causing Derik to jump away and hit the thing away to ground.

It was then that he realized that the thing was the hand of one of the fifteen year old girls that had been in the room earlier. His face went red with embarrassment while he studied, or rather, ogled, her long, graceful face, her silky shoulder length hair, her smooth and freckled skin.

"I- I'm really sorry about that," Derik stammered.

"Oh, it's alright," the girl said. "I'm a bit jumpy myself. By the way, uh... shit, I forgot your name, but I liked your speech. Very authoritative for someone who was younger than pretty much everybody in there." It was then that she offered Derik a beautiful smile.

"Name's Derik," he said. "And, thanks, I guess."

"Yea, sorry about forgetting... It's just that I've been a bit stressed lately... Though, who hasn't, right? Anyways, I'd better get inside before my mom yells at me." She turned to go inside, but before she did she turned back and said, "My name's Olivia, by the way. Anyways, I'll talk to you later, Derik."

As she opened the door and headed into the house Derik got to study the rest of Olivia. Namely, he studied the way her waist tapered to meet her hips, and the way that her ass seemed to be curved just right.

After he had come back to his senses Derik padded through the grass to the ladder and began climbing it, though he did so slowly. When he got to the top Ernie looked at him funnily and raised an eyebrow. "Any particular reason that you're wearing that thing?" he asked.

"Yea..." Derik said. "It's way easier to carry ammunition in this thing, and it fits very well. At least, I think so. So, how you doing up here, man? Tired? Hungry?"

"Well, yea, of course I'm tired! Anyways, how's everything going down there? You want me to help rough anybody up?"

"Oh, yea, like I'd need help beating the crap out of any of them. Naw, they're all being good. At least, nobody has rebelled yet. I'm ready for them, though. There's one guy, older than either of us, who spoke out against my speech. Called me a dictator... But I think that he's inspired me! I'm totally gonna go buy a fake mustache and a drab green uniform now."

"Hah, yea... Alright, well, I'll stay up here for maybe an hour or two longer. Plus, some food would be pretty sweet, if you could manage that," Ernie said, giving Derik a hopeful thumbs up.

"Yea, yea... Does some fruit sound good? I don't think that cooking something would be too smart an idea right now... There might be a sandwich in the refrigerator that I could bring you," Derik thought.

"Yea, that sounds good. What do you have to drink?" Ernie asked.

"Ah, I'll just bring you up a Pepsi. That'll work for you, right? Right."

"Right. Well, at least I got a say in the matter."

As Derik started down the ladder he said, "Ha, me give you a choice? You only wish!"

* * *

1428 Hans Way - 6:45

Jason tried to take a nap lying on the porch swing, but he was having as much luck as he'd had inside. Occasionally one of the undead would come by and would be dispatched by a single shot, sometimes two.

Not only that, but Jason had the image of the helicopter being struck by the missile imprinted on his mind - it was there every time he closed his eyes.

The air was dead still in the hills at the moment, and all noises carried extremely far. Mostly there were a few gunshots, the occasional scream, and a lot of the undead's moaning.

Then they could hear a storm of fire start up, hundreds and hundreds of gunshots, and the occasional of rumbling explosion.

'What ever it is,' he thought to himself, 'It'll come this way eventually. No need to investigate it.'

* * *

The Eastern Approach to Fairbanks - 6:46

Sergeant McKellan watched the faces of the other men in his helicopter. There were ten of them in all, eight armed with M16A2 assault rifles. The other two were armed with an M249 SAW and an M240B.

"Everybody in back, get ready to jump. We're dropping you at the cordon line," the pilot yelled back to the ten men as the helicopter pulled up to a hover and then dropped slowly to the ground.

As soon as it hit dirt they were off, McKellan and his men, their boots pounding onto the dirt next to the road. As soon as they were out the large helicopter pulled away back into the air, turning back to pick up more men from Eielson.

"Hey, over here, move it move it!" someone yelled at the assembled men, waving his arms.

All around were helicopters of all sorts, Russian and American, dropping off troops and equipment and firing weapons into the undead up the road. Various land vehicles were around as well, armored transports, tanks, jeeps, the whole lot.

The cordon itself was a hastily erected line of ten foot tall sandbag walls and towers, with men literally lining the ramparts with rifles.

On top of every tower were a a giant pair of speakers, each of them droning on and on with a loud bass note that vibrated the air, a strange undertone to the sound of gunfire and vehicles.

From the landing pad McKellan and his men were ushered to the road where men were being directed about into lines of twenty men abreast with a vehicle between each line.

The line seemed to go on for hundreds of feet, stretching out towards the gate of the cordon.

As McKellan and his men stood waiting one of the organizers came over and tapped him on the shoulder, and then pointed to his wrist and said, "Ten minutes until we open the gates and move in. You need anything before you and your men go in, Sergeant?"

"No, we're fine, but we only have ten men in our line! Any reason for that?" McKellan asked him as he motioned towards the empty space to his right.

"Oh, shit," the organizer said looking around for men to grab. "Just a second, Sergeant," he said as he ran off to find some men to fill the space.

About a minute later ten Russians jogged over, black Abakan rifles cradled in their arms. As they lined up their squad leader came to stand next to McKellan, and he turned over and put forth a hand, searching for words in his head.

"Sergeant," he started, "I am Vosya. It is honor to fighting be with you today."

McKellan took the Russian's hand and replied in just as choppy Russian, saying, "Good to be fighting with you today, Vosya. I'm McKellan." That's what he thought he said, anyways.

Ten minutes later there was a grinding noise towards the front of the line and then the convoy began to move at a snail's pace towards the city in the river valley below.

It took ten minutes for McKellan's line to make it to the gate as they followed the Humvee in front of them, but once they were there McKellan was able to marvel at the three meter tall and ten meter wide metal gate that was now moved off to one side. The ground here shook with the force of the bass note being played, and it disoriented McKellan for a moment.

This was forgotten as he made it out the cordon and saw something that would stay in his mind forever as a scar.

There were no trees or distinguishable features about the ground for one hundred meters beyond the sandbag walls, it had all been bombed out hours earlier to provide a clear line of sight for the defenders. The ground was also covered with hundreds and hundreds of elongated lumps that were strangely still, and the ground seemed to be very dark red.

Apparently the artillery had been fired to clear away large pockets of the walking stiffs several times as McKellan walked over several dismembered arms, legs, and other body parts.

Gunfire was heard up ahead continually, but McKellan kept marching without seeing any walking dead. No, the ones that he walked by were all dead.

Even when the convoy made its way away from the no man's land and into the forested area McKellan still saw no undead, but the gunshots from up ahead were continual, and the bodies still littered the ground as he passed.

Nearly forty-five minutes after the start of the foray McKellan passed a line of twenty men marching along the side of the road - back to the cordon. Vosya watched this two, and he wondered out loud, "Where they are going, do you think?"

McKellan thought on it for five minutes while the gunfire ahead increased in amount and the Convoy slowed to a crawl. When another line of soldiers trudged back along the side of the massive column, obviously lacking any ammunition he realized what the strategy was.

They were simply sending line after line towards the undead, and once that line ran out of ammunition it was sent back, but if it was all the way back to the Cordon McKellan wasn't sure. After one more line passed by McKellan came across the three vehicles that were associated with the three infantry lines.

On a pull-out by the road there they were, one BTR-90, one Humvee, and one two and a half ton truck. The truck was simply parked on the side of the pull-out, and the BTR was facing down the road, while the Humvee was facing the other way. Five men were busy unloading crates of supplies from the two and a half ton truck.

Five other men were busy dragging mutilated bloody corpses into one corner that was sheltered by earth on three sides, piling them up.

It was nearly an hour later when McKellan watched the line in front of him break away, exhausted, their munitions spent. The BMP with them pulled away as well, leaving nothing between McKellan's line and a mass of the shambling undead ahead. McKellan now understood why the line had stopped so often, as moving while firing at the figures would have been nearly impossible and impractical. Rather, McKellan organized it so that the Russians would move forwards ten feet and fire while the Americans moved forwards ten feet. While they were moving forwards they would occasionally pop off a shot.

After five minutes they had already burned through a fifth of their ammunition and had left a trail of bodies in their wake.

The push into Fairbanks had begun - undead casualties were nearing the five-thousand mark, Russian casualties were at four, and American casualties were at eight. This was only beginning.

* * *

Derik's grandparent's house - 9:36 A.M.

Derrik hauled the mattress up the ladder while Ernie pushed from below.

"Come on, you bastard, pull your part, dammit," Ernie half-yelled up at Derik.

"I'm pullin', man, just give me a second, I've just got to get up on the roof," Derik replied.

An hour ago Derik and Ernie had decided that just sitting on the fairly steep roof was just too dangerous, so they went back over to the neighbor's garage from earlier and stole more two by fours, two sheet of plywood, and several mattresses. Three of the mattresses went into the house for people to sleep on, but the fourth was currently being hauled up to the roof where the two sheets of plywood now formed a platform that was supported by a network of two by fours nailed directly to the roof. One sheet had a two by four rising up on each corner and a tarp was hanging from each of these supports, effectively creating a room to store things in and perhaps sleep in.

Derik and Ernie wrestled with the mattress for a few more minutes and finally got it on the platform.

"Shit, man," panted Derik. "Well, now that this is up here I'm set for a while. You can take the .270 back down to whats her face, I left the vest down there with her already, and I'll keep the .308 with me. Make sure they're all doin' what I told 'em to, right?"

"Yea, I will," Ernie said as he carried the rifle with him down the ladder. "I will."

Derik adjusted the mattress a bit more, made sure it was an even distance from all the edges and then set his rifle just inside the tarp room. He looked around a moment more at the sunlight shining down on him, at the green trees, at the smoke rising into the sky in the distance... And decided to lie down on the mattress and take a nap.

He lay there, letting the sun shine down upon him. He could hear everything very well now - the rustling of the leaves as a slight wind blew through them, scattered gunshots from every direction, a few moans in the distance...

Derik let himself be absorbed, and let himself drift away...

"Hello, is anybody up here?" somebody, a girl, asked.

Derik lay still for a small moment, listening to the noises that had lulled him to sleep who knew how long earlier.

"Hello?" the girl asked again. It sounded like the girl from earlier... Olivia, or whatever her name was.

_'The one with the nice ass,'_ Derik thought to himself, grinning slightly. He wanted to get up, wanted to say something, but he was just so tired... His arms and legs felt like lead and it was like he had no will power. _'I probably should say something, though."_

"Derik, you up here..? Ah, there you are," Olivia said as she pulled herself up onto the plywood platform.

Derik opened his eyes and reached through the tarp with his right arm, pulling out a large pillow that he propped himself up with.

"Yea, I'm up here," Derik said. "But... What... What are you doing up here, girl?"

"Oh, my mom, inside... She was kinda being a bitch, so I decided to come out and see who was up here," Olivia said as she dangled her legs over the river side of the platform. "...And I found you again."

"I can see," Derik said closing his eyes again.

The two were quiet for a few minutes and Derik almost fell asleep again as he listened to the leaves, the gunshots, the moans...

"So, what's your story?" Olivia asked out of the blue, turning her head to look at Derik.

"My story?" Derik thought out loud. "Well, I was in class, taking Geometry at Lathrop, and the school went to code red or whatever right after the bell rang, so everybody else was gone but Zane, Breanne, and I. We stayed there for nearly forever, ok, well, maybe a few hours, when we saw two cops run up against the front doors of the school... I ran down there, let them in, and then they took us in their squad car here. They left about an hour later and things went from there.

"And now... Here I am! On top of my grandparent's roof and taking a nap. Didn't see that one coming," Derik said as he closed his eyes again.

Olivia was quiet for a moment and then asked, "Where are your grandparents?"

"Oh, they're down on the East Coast, or somewhere in the lower forty eight like that. Grandpa's got cancer, so they're looking into treatment for it." Derik paused a moment, chuckled, and then said, "They must be shitting their pants right now if they've been watching the news."

"Oh. That... Sucks..." Olivia said as she watched a zombie stumble across the lawn of a house across the river. Apparently it was chasing after a vole.

"Yea. So, what about you?" Derik asked as he listened to the leaves rustling.

"I was sick today, actually," Olivia began. "That and I didn't want to go to school because some people were being pieces of shit... But, anyways, my mom called in and excused me and then took me into town to go shopping. While we were driving through down town we rammed the back of a car that had hit one of those... Things. God, I remember being so surprised. And then two of the things started coming for my side of the car, I don't know where they came from before that, and just before they reached my open window a man ran up and shot both of them in the head and helped me and my mother out of the car.

"From there he brought us across the bridge and to the gun store, and we hid in there with more and more people that kept arriving until down town settled down a bit. After that some people decided that it would be better to stay on the bridge - I don't know why - so we moved _everything_ there and stayed there for hours. Then the two cops came and got us on those buses and directed us here... And here I am."

"That's my line," Derik said, but before Olivia could say anything he asked her, "What about your dad?"

"Out on the North slope," she replied. "Safe, I hope."

The two didn't say anything for quite a while. When Olivia finally did say something, asking Derik about his parents, she didn't get a reply, and when she looked she found that Derik had fallen fast asleep.

_"Oh,"_ Olivia thought to herself. _"I guess I should stay up here to keep watch since he's asleep..."_

Of course, she didn't exactly mind staying up there in the sun with a boy that she had only just met but was so far smitten with, even if it meant that the dead were walking.

Little did she know that this would be her last quiet moment for a long time.


End file.
